Ask HN: Consolidated Evidence of Google's Untrustworthiness? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Consolidated Evidence of Google's Untrustworthiness?

5 pointscanadaduane3 comments

Every week or so I see a post here on HN about someone losing all of their YouTube videos to a Google AI accusation of copyright infringement, or of their Google account being shut down because of content in their Google Drive being flagged as disallowed.

I don't think most people see this as a pattern, and I'd like to share evidence of the trend with friends and family so that they can protect themselves.

Is there a website that consolidates these cases and potentially summarizes them?

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Maybe not what you are looking for, but this website more than raised an eyebrow for me:

https://killedbygoogle.com (Google Graveyard - Killed by Google)

It's a quite big list of services axed by Google. Some might argue that it's "their right" to close their own services. I disagree, because it's not so simple. This site is litany of digital harms inflicted by a company that uses the internet as its own private testing laboratory in which we are all guinea-pigs. Their cavalier attitude to unilaterally shuttering services, often with scant warning, has caused real economic damage to millions. You might argue that, on the contrary Google have provided valuable free services, missing the point that the harms outweigh the benefits because continuity and trust are more valuable than mere availability.

Not what you're looking for but the best summary may be common sense.

If the service is free, *you* are the product.

If the product can't be sufficiently monetized, the "free" service will end.

More people now understand the game and becoming more privacy aware and focused.

Consequently, more and more of the "free" service is either retreating behind a pay wall or being degraded into an ad delivery vehicle (ie web search).

"Google" history is synonymous with privacy invasion and questionable "free" service longevity and/or utility.

The European Union is the best bet for a motivated party. Probably only interested in breaches affecting EU nationals but it couldn't hurt to document more widespread problems?

So I'd be looking in the .EU domain space for a social justice for monopoly/privacy/equity cases.

Oxford University hosts a social justice, ethics and internet group. They might have something.

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