What Is the Ethical Ignorance of Google?
May 17, 2012
A new concept is at hand: ethical ignorance. Ars Technica tackles the subject in “Leave Only Footprints: How Google’s Ethical Ignorance Gets It in Trouble.” At issue (this time) is the company’s ill-conceived wardriving practices. Between May 2007 and May 2010, Google’s Street View cars collected personal data from WiFi networks, including e-mail addresses and passwords. The idea was, most likely, to simply gather data that could be analyzed for insight and profit. However, when the exploit was exposed, regulators and the public were understandably irate. The FCC ultimately judged the practice to be legal.
The engineer responsible for the initiative was Marius Milner, who says he did try to get direction from his higher ups before proceeding. They insist they never read his reports. Writer Casey Johnston points to comments Milner made in 2004 that indicate he was very familiar with the legal and ethical implications of his project. She writes:
“Milner’s prior awareness of the privacy and legal issues in lifting data from open WiFi networks implicates him, in one sense: he created tools to do something that was, at best, an ethically gray area for the community out of which he came. But he did first raise questions and seek out advice from his superiors; when it was not forthcoming, he apparently decided to forge ahead. His decision to raise the issue at least partly exonerates him from Google’s initial suggestion that he acted alone and failed to make his superiors aware of what he was doing. . . .”
“Whether it was a matter of time pressure or miscommunication, the apparent lack of advice and supervision resulted in an alarming misstep for Google.”
Good points, though calling this a “misstep” is generous. We thought the policy was do what you want and just apologize if someone complains. Would a movie star convert ethics into ideological tiger blood or just winning?
Cynthia Murrell, May 17, 2012
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