• ArghZombies@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yeah, people who believe that Google is listening in to their conversations just to sell ads really don’t understand a) how pointless that is considering how much they already know about you from the stuff you voluntarily give them, and b) why it’s legally not even something they’d consider. If they were doing it and someone discovered proof then the company would be sued out of business. Why would they risk the damage to their rep and finances just to sell ads, when they can already sell ads accurately based on data they’ve legally acquired

    And not to mention the amount of storage and processing power it would take to record everyone’s conversations, 24/7.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Google being sued out of business? By the AMERICAN “justice” system, criminal or civil?

      If you truly believe that would ever happen, I have a mountain chalet in Florida to sell you.

      • ArghZombies@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Ok, heavily fined then.

        Regardless, there are multiple reasons why they wouldn’t / aren’t listening in, and maybe 1 reason they would - to target you with ads? Why would they bother? Hell, my Google Home can’t even understand me when I explicitly talk to it to ask it something. Even if they could listen in to everything, they wouldn’t get any accuracy.

        People just find it a fun conspiracy theory. But if you sit back and think about it for longer then 10 seconds you realise how ludicrously unlikely it is

    • FellowHippo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Can confirm. Used to work for Google. There is no way in hell they would ever do this. Management would absolutely not allow it. Anyone who disobeyed management and did it anyway would get fired. Legal concerns aside, way too much risk to Google’s brand.

    • Mikina@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      If they were doing it and someone discovered proof then the company would be sued out of business.

      Are there any examples of large companies being sued out of business for something like privacy breach? I may be mistaken, because it’s one of the common conspiracies that large companies are listening though your mic, but weren’t there actually cases like that? With sometihng like FB or Alexa or whatever?