I've seen these facts before, and all I have to counter with is that google thinks I'm a dude.

No, really. Based on my searches and the things I like, google thinks I'm a dude.

So, uhh... there's a little refining to do there before they become skynet (GOOGLE IS SKYNET).

Ugh, that's terrible!

In my case, it's something I was able to intuit - if I'm on Youtube, I regularly get angry anti-feminist videos showing up in my "recommended viewing" list even though I've never watched any anti-feminist videos on Youtube. I've watched a handful of feminist videos, some of which I liked and some of which I didn't. But the first time an anti-Anita Sarkeesian video showed up in my recommended viewing list, I'd never even been to Reddit.

I wonder how google figures out your gender... has it figured out search criteria that men and women regularly look for and decides from that?

Google seems to know I'm a woman considering the amount of times I've got advertisements about sanitary product. Like, seriously, you think I'm going to order kotex from the internet?

I'm pretty much with wren here.  And the insidious thing about Corporate 1984, as opposed to Government 1984, is that there are usually ways for a few determined individuals to hold government accountable.  In America we have certain rights against the government -- rights against unreasonable searches, for example.  If the government indexes your hard drive or taps your phone without a warrant, you can sue them.  You might not know they're doing this, of course, but eventually it will come out, maybe because of an Edward Snowden.  And once a court finds that the government is violating people's civil liberties, the government has to knock it off.

None of that is true about Google.  Google is limited only by the user agreements it has with you, the ones we all click through without reading.  When Chrome launched, its license agreement contained a clause giving Google the right to publicly display and distribute your emails, your credit card numbers, and anything else you "submitted, posted, or displayed" using Chrome.  This was probably an honest mistake; they either drafted the agreement very poorly (which is scary) or copy-pasted a different agreement without reading it (which is both scary and ironic).  Once this was pointed out, they removed it.  But many thousands had already downloaded Chrome and clicked Accept, and I would have been one of them if I'd been an early adopter of Chrome, because I don't read EULAs either.  If Google (or any other software company) puts something abusive in its EULA and exploits it, then they've got us.  A few determined individuals can't force them to change their policy, because they're not doing anything illegal.  Oh, and don't forget the clause that says they can change the agreement at any time without notice, and your continued use of the product constitutes assent to the change.

I'm not overly concerned with Google's decision to nix links to 8chan, assuming they continue to do that.  Google is an information company.  They make money by getting and providing information.  They won't blacklist the Internet willy-nilly, because that reduces how much information they can get and provide.  If they've removed 8chan search results, it's because they are worried about being liable for linking users to extremely illegal content, not because of moral disapproval.  Google doesn't have morals.  If they start taking down links to sites that are critical of Google, that is the moment when I'll stop using their products.

Ragnarok wrote:

This isn't completely true. While EULAs use legal speak and are (presumably) written by people who know the laws well, they aren't law themselves. Nor are they exempt from being disputed in court. The fact that "no one" reads through these documents actually hurts the company when it comes to trying to legally enforce their contracts, it can be seen as unreasonable for a customer to be able to understand and comply with the conditions presented.

You're right that a contract is not the word of God -- but it is the next best thing.  Fifty Shades of Grey notwithstanding, if you sign a contract where you agree to be someone's slave, that contract is not enforceable; there are things you just can't barter away.  But those things are usually fundamental civil rights protections, and other cases where the whole point of a law is subverted by the contract -- for instance, you can't sign an enforceable contract where you agree to be paid less than minimum wage by your boss, because that's what minimum wage means.  Most of the EULA terms we complain about fall short of that standard.

As for "no one reads it" being a defense, it's true that people have tried that argument, and once in a blue moon it wins, but this is very much the exception rather than the rule.  After all, when you click I Agree, you're asserting that you've read and understand the terms of the agreement -- it usually says so right there on the screen.  It is pretty hard to convince a court that, even though the text of the license was in front of you, and even though you specifically clicked a button that said you read it, nevertheless you didn't read it and therefore you should not be bound by it.  Sure, it's a boilerplate contract that you didn't have the opportunity to negotiate, and that does work in your favor, but basically I Agree means I Agree.  So your odds of winning are already bad, and that's before you take into account that the corporation's lawyer is way better than your lawyer, and that they can afford to drag the case on while you can't.  Even the exception I linked to above was not an ordinary court case, but a complaint brought directly by the FTC, which has its own very good lawyers.  In front of the right judge, I have no doubt at all that Google can bury a modest monthly charge in its EULA and get away with it.  You agreed to pay it; what more do you want?  What was Google supposed to do?  Why would you assume it was free?  Isn't "how much does it cost?" the very first thing you should ask about software?  (And as for getting the right judge, remember that the venue of the case is also usually specified by Google in the EULA, assuming they let you take it to court at all rather than submit to arbitration.)  Wikipedia has a selection of such cases, if you want to do further reading.

On a somewhat related note, the Ashley Madison data breach is really popcorn-worthy. People are again reminded that just because a service claims to be safe, there's no way to prove if it is until something like this happens. And while a part of me is giggling with glee over people actually paying money for that shit and expecting it to be safe and then getting fucked over, the mere fact that a service would so shamelessly exploit users and still have millions of them paints a rather chilling picture of the current state of privacy awareness on the internet.

I mean, people in high positions used their official emails to register?! I feel like in this day and age, that kind of behavior is inexcusable if you're an internet-using adult. Period.

Setting aside how disgusted I am by the mere existence of such a site and it's popularity, this is a cautionary tale for users of any service, really. The internet is a dangerous place, and it's the last place you should be accumulating your dirty laundry.

I might have gone ahead of myself a bit since I find the situation funny (I'm evil, what can I say). The whole thing is sad, since the site seemed to have appalling security, extorted money to delete an account (which wouldn't actually get deleted), when the entire purpose of it's existence should have been iron security and absolute discretion. And innocent people could easily have been trolled, since the site doesn't verify emails.

If something you do on the internet, barring whiny texts about your parents or boyfriend or complaining about work, has the potential to really hurt an innocent person in your life, maybe, just maybe you should consider not doing it online, where privacy breaches have happened and will continue to happen. Having your private information published for everyone to see is horrible, but I believe that being just a bit more cautious with the really heavy stuff can go a long way - be aware that something like this might happen, and help yourself as much as you can.

And I think that your penchant for furry porn can't really be compared to paying for affairs in regards to hurting someone you care about. But the one at fault here is the site itself, with it's dubious policies, and hating on individuals is just circlefuckery. And hackers gonna hack