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How Google spent 15 years creating a culture of concealment

(www.nytimes.com)
154 points tysone | 4 comments | 20 Nov 24 11:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.004s | source
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getpost ◴[20 Nov 24 23:05 UTC] No.42199072[source]▶
If anything you ever say during routine business operations can end up as evidence, clear and honest communication will suffer. The effectiveness of organizations, including the ability to act ethically, will be seriously degraded.

There needs to be some kind of work product doctrine, which protects the privacy of routine business communication. Defining that, while allowing the collection of evidence of criminal activity, won't be easy, but the current state of affairs is unworkable.

I don't wish to facilitate corporate crime, and it's obvious that some of Google's anti-competitive behavior is unlawful. But, I don't see any realistic alternative to what Google is doing in the current legal environment.

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lancesells ◴[20 Nov 24 23:23 UTC] No.42199195[source]▶
> If anything you ever say during routine business operations can end up as evidence, clear and honest communication will suffer. The effectiveness of organizations, including the ability to act ethically, will be seriously degraded.

> There needs to be some kind of work product doctrine, which protects the privacy of routine business communication.

Wow. This is the opposite of how I feel. Mega-corporations should have their communications logged at a much higher level than a normal business. The things that have come out in court show how they manipulated their customers (advertisers). Regardless of how you feel about advertising a portion of those companies are small mom and pop shops trying to get by. If you have communications that can be used as evidence you're probably in the wrong.

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mattmaroon ◴[20 Nov 24 23:26 UTC] No.42199221[source]▶
“ If you have communications that can be used as evidence you're probably in the wrong.”

I’m surprised to see someone advocating for “if you haven’t done anything wrong you don’t have anything to hide” on HN. The cognitive dissonance must be in overdrive here!

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refulgentis ◴[20 Nov 24 23:32 UTC] No.42199271{3}[source]▶
It's not that, though, I understand the temptation to `sed` what they said into that. It's easier, more fun, and its much more work to come with curiosity.
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1. mattmaroon ◴[21 Nov 24 00:03 UTC] No.42199517{4}[source]▶
There's nothing here to be curious about, just the usual "corporations bad". It's easy to mistake an emotion for an idea but it isn't.

I'd normally pass it by entirely with an eye roll, I just thought it was funny that it's the opposite of how they'd feel if talking about people in their personal lives, completely unaware that these are the same people at just a different time of day.

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2. refulgentis ◴[21 Nov 24 02:19 UTC] No.42200424[source]▶
> There's nothing here to be curious about, just the usual "corporations bad"

I'm sorry to be abrupt, but thats not true. We can see that empirically. For instance, you are talking to someone who read it and thinks that's a simplistic caricature of what they said.

So we can dispense with the idea your rephrasing is equivalent. That's indisputable.

There's a good quote about this in Rand, something something faced with a contradiction check your premises. When we jump to these kind of reactions, it's an annoying responsibility to pause and sigh, and engage on some level beyond "I'm sick of people saying (something they didn't say)"

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3. mattmaroon ◴[21 Nov 24 02:40 UTC] No.42200546[source]▶
It’s clearly not indisputable as it has been disputed. And I was responding directly to something someone did say. (That person did not say that the same logic doesn’t apply out of the office, I did infer that part.)

But both the “corporations are bad” mind virus (which is no more interesting than flat earth theories) and the idea that individuals want and deserve privacy even when acting morally and legally are so widely held here that I’m sure that Venn Diagram is like 90% the overlap part. The post to which I was replying may not be in it, I have no idea.

I wanted to point it out so people could see it clearly in case anyone caught it. I’m sure a lot of people felt some cognitive dissonance by agreeing with both and didn’t realize it, as one rarely does.

The original idea to which parent was replying actually was interesting. If nothing can be deleted, corporations (and people, when not at work) can be hampered and pushed into other forms of communication, other actions, etc. which can then even grow to be nefarious. That one’s interesting, “if what you said could be evidence then you did something wrong just because you were at work” isn’t, it’s just silly. It’s child logic.

4. kelnos ◴[21 Nov 24 05:10 UTC] No.42201335[source]▶
It's not, though. It's people in an entirely different context, acting as an agent of a legal entity that is regulated and has restrictions on the things it can do.

This is the same reason why I think police should be recorded when they are out on duty. A person gets to have the right to privacy, but the police, while on duty, should not have that right, given that they have the ability to legally kill someone, among other things.

If you (police, large corporation) are granted the legal ability to do harm on a large scale, then you also need checks to ensure those abilities are not being abused.