Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 428 posts

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#31

Post by 323 »

cryptonym wrote: post #15
qnsi wrote: post #8

What can we as people in top 1% with 1) information about big tech abuses 2) skills to fix this do? Individually we can use browsers like firefox or brave and probably donate time or money to them, but I think it's not enough. I think we would need something like a movement against those abuses, but probably the biggest win would be a business model that could win with them in the free market. Is this possible? Has a…

Install Firefox and ublock on every single device of friends and family, including mobiles. Reject walled garden not allowing blocking ads.

How ironic...

If you browse HN from 10 years ago, you'll see exactly the same advice, except instead of "replace Chrome with Firefox" it was "replace IE with Chrome".

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#32

Post by 323 »

Let's not blame a whole company for what some small part of it did.

Google does a lot of good in this world. They were the first "ethical" tech company, the first tech company with "hacker values" at heart. "do no evil" is still a core value there.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#33

Post by mabbo »

vadfa wrote: post #14
mabbo wrote: post #11

It takes two things for programs like "Jedi Blue" to happen. First, you need sociopaths in leadership positions who champion this 'great idea' they've figured out. These people often rise up in large companies because they are willing to do this sort of thing without any remorse. But second, you need developers to build it. A large number of them, usually, for a big project like this. Dozens of people like us knew th…

What you are saying is that morals and laws are the same thing, which they are not. Laws can very well be immoral, and sense of morality depends entirely on each one of us.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that ethics should matter when choosing where you work and on what you work more than laws.

I'm saying anyone willing to work on an obvious unethical or illegal project is either an accomplice or a coward.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#34

Post by flenserboy »

shp0ngle wrote: post #20

Those are claims of an attorney general, right. Not something swore by oath from Google/Facebook. Claims from AGs strictly from conservative states.

Your accusation can be turned around: Interesting, isn't it, that those most likely to engage in collusion with G/FB are silent on the matter?

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#35

Post by JasonFruit »

shp0ngle wrote: post #20

Those are claims of an attorney general, right. Not something swore by oath from Google/Facebook. Claims from AGs strictly from conservative states.

Don't try to use political division to redirect people's anger at each other. I'm to the point where I'm deeply suspicious of the motives of anyone who deploys a novel way to recast an issue as partisan. I hope others are equally suspicious.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#36

Post by y4mi »

croes wrote: post #28
lordnacho wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I dabbled in ecommerce and while it wasn't a roaring success, people definitely did click the ads and buy the product, and I made a tiny bit of money. My guess is if someone actually knew a few more things than me they could make it work properly.

It's not about effectiveness of ads but if it's more effective as previous methods and are the huge data collections necessary for the effect.

I'm pretty sure that most previous methods have had their effectiveness significantly reduced by how our society works nowadays.

Most non-IT workers still don't use an AdBlocker, so you're actually getting your ads in front of the majority of the population.

If you did the same with TV or even worse magazine ads you'd reach only a tiny segment of people, as the quantity of people consuming this kind of content has been drastically reduced.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#37

Post by lordnacho »

croes wrote: post #28
lordnacho wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I dabbled in ecommerce and while it wasn't a roaring success, people definitely did click the ads and buy the product, and I made a tiny bit of money. My guess is if someone actually knew a few more things than me they could make it work properly.

It's not about effectiveness of ads but if it's more effective as previous methods and are the huge data collections necessary for the effect.

What previous methods do you mean? As for data, I guess I can't really see it all, it's inside Facebook. But spending money on the wrong target groups seems to not work, according to my experience. So it does seem like FB collects useful data for targeting ads.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#38

Post by dotancohen »

323 wrote: post #32

Let's not blame a whole company for what some small part of it did. Google does a lot of good in this world. They were the first "ethical" tech company, the first tech company with "hacker values" at heart. "do no evil" is still a core value there.

One bad apple does spoil an entire bunch.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#39

Post by JasonFruit »

vadfa wrote: post #14
mabbo wrote: post #11

It takes two things for programs like "Jedi Blue" to happen. First, you need sociopaths in leadership positions who champion this 'great idea' they've figured out. These people often rise up in large companies because they are willing to do this sort of thing without any remorse. But second, you need developers to build it. A large number of them, usually, for a big project like this. Dozens of people like us knew th…

What you are saying is that morals and laws are the same thing, which they are not. Laws can very well be immoral, and sense of morality depends entirely on each one of us.

That's a smooth attempt to make this an argument about semantics.

Re: Google has a secret deal with FB called “Jedi Blue” that they knew was illegal

#40

Post by vadfa »

mabbo wrote: post #33
vadfa wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are saying is that morals and laws are the same thing, which they are not. Laws can very well be immoral, and sense of morality depends entirely on each one of us.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that ethics should matter when choosing where you work and on what you work more than laws. I'm saying anyone willing to work on an obvious unethical or illegal project is either an accomplice or a coward.

First, you edited your comment and removed all references to "law"/"illegal" you had made.

Also, I'm saying that your sense of ethics is not universal.

Post reply on HN