[imhoguy]

I don't think anybody would do it purely for money. I would rather see someone who is terminally ill and decides to do some "good".

[dlenski]

There are not too many mentally-sharp, fully-employed, terminally-ill people that I have met. Even fewer at tech companies.

And even fewer who are single and childless. (Google would likely go after the estate of anyone who did this.)

[bitmasher9]

I wonder how hard they would press an estate. It’s bad PR to go after widows and surviving children, and the data has already escaped.

This is something they’d want to settle quietly, so the family would have leverage.

[gpm]

I wonder how hard Google could press an estate. For a living person the main consequences would be criminal, not civil, but you can't go after a dead person criminally. Civilly it's not really clear to me that Google would have been harmed enough to create noteworthy damages.

The book publishers might actually be the bigger problem. They'd have civil copyright infringement claims with giant statutory damages.

[tumdum_]

They’ve made so many terrible decisions already. Going after widows wouldn’t change anything.

[AlexeyBelov]

> It’s bad PR to go after widows and surviving children

Do you think they care? People with cancer are often laid off from companies. Sometimes a bit after their diagnosis becomes known to the company.

[imhoguy]

But the one would be enough, especially in large organization. Surely they would need access to the exact data too.

[dlenski]

And what I'm saying is that it's probably unlikely that this "one" exists.