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Comment by dlp211 | Hacker News Reader

The difference is the extent to which those companies make that data accessible to third parties.

Disclaimer: I work for Google

What is the actual difference between Google/Facebook and "third parties"? Google actively uses information it gets about me in ways I don't approve of, and generally can't opt out of without stopping use of the services entirely.

Sure, Cambridge Analytica was using the data to influence an election, but Google is not shy about it's own social activism, and it's efforts to manipulate users into seeing it's view of the world.

Google's only protective of our data for selfish reasons: If you sell our data outright, the third party doesn't have need of you anymore, but if Google maintains a tight hold on the data, Google can continually sell the ability to make use of it (through Google's advertising services and the like) over, and over, and over.

The harm to me is the same either way.

Google keeps a tight hold on the data, whereas Facebook had APIs that allowed FB-apps to crawl segments of the FB graph. By doing that thousands of times, apps could export a large part of the data, and FB lost control over how the data could be used. By contrast, Google retains control.

I understand your point that we as end-users don't have any control over the way the data is used in either case. But I do think there is a material difference between the two scenarios.

I just don't see why "Google retaining control" is a positive, when Google is as hostile an actor as Cambridge Analytica. If companies are going to use data to sway public opinion and tailor advertising, how much does it really matter which company is doing it?

This is sort of like saying all political parties are the same. We can and should make distinctions.

What makes Cambridge Analytica worse than Google, specifically? Is the distinction you can draw between the two objective, or subjective to your personal view (or political party)?

(From what I've found, most people upset with "all political parties are the same" are people who belong to one, and are upset that they get grouped in with people who do the exact same things they do. Not "all political parties" are the same, but the two of them I deal with as a US citizen definitely are.)

> What makes Cambridge Analytica worse than Google, specifically?

The outright lying about purpose thing, by which CA’s key data was gathered, for starters.

I would argue both Google and many other data collection based companies do this as well. Data is collected under the auspices of being able to "provide you with better services", even though the actual purpose is to target ads to you more accurately. (They may have better legal disclaimers and statements of how data will be used stuffed in their EULAs nobody reads, but I don't feel that's much less deceptive in reality.)

Retaining control is a positive because it allows you to change your mind and change what's being done with the data--or for that matter for legislation to limit wat you may do with the data.

Once the data is out of your control, there is no longer any way to control what is done with it. Don't think that Cambridge Analytics are the only ones who did this and who have this data. Shutting down CA won't stop the exported FB data from being put to all sorts of uses.

Isn't part of the complaint that Cambridge Analytica was instructed to delete the data by Facebook, and claimed they did, but in fact, that they did not?

What is to say Facebook itself or Google can't operate in the same way?

I'm personally more concerned with the sheer volume of information that Google/Facebook/whoever collects about me. The Cambridge Analytica scandal shouldn't have surprised anyone that is remotely concerned with privacy. If the data is collected and stored, it's creates vulnerabilities to be hacked/leaked.

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