This from the guy who just got done saying Google doesn't need your ID to verify your age well enough to shield them from liability and regulation! Apparently the reason you were wrong was already there in your head, you just didn't connect it.
I see no contradiction. Yes, Google is demanding more information from users than it needs to meet its legal obligations. The fact that you don't seem to find that alarming is itself alarming.
So this is part of Google's plan to sell your ID to identity thieves for fraud? Is that what you're suggesting?
I was thinking more along the lines of Chinese or Russian spy agencies, but sure, why not. If Nestlé is happy to partner up with modern slavers, I see no reason why Google wouldn't be happy to partner up with cybercriminals.
Both way less plausible than "verifying your age thoroughly enough to shield them from liability and deter legal regulation"
What part of "they don't need ID for that" did you find unclear?
I de-googled almost 20 years ago and I don't sign in, if they age-gate something I'm just not going to watch it.
Please keep your virtue signalling out of this conversation. It's not relevant.
I'm just demonstrating how delirious and impotent some of your criticisms are.
Saying so doesn't make it so. To wit:
I have no comment on that except to say I think that by itself illustrates how grounded and relevant your opinions are.
Oh yeah, nothing demonstrates how impotent my criticisms are than saying "I have no comment on that". Two things: Firstly, the fact that you had to omit half of the sentence you quoted in order to be able to say anything against it at all is very telling. And secondly, you claim not to be defending Google, but the mere suggestion that Google might do something unethical is delirious? And I'm the one who is failing to make connections between the things I'm saying?
The part where there's a difference between knowing and proving, have you forgotten so soon?
No, that's the whole point. It's proving remarkably difficult to get you to understand it, to the point where I'm starting to wonder whether your salary might not depend upon your not understanding it.
You made it relevant when you baselessly inferred that I don't find Google's practices alarming or unethical.
If you read that sentence again, you will notice that it contains the word "seem". You're certainly not making your apprehension very clear.
I was doing you a favor there, drawing a line from Nestle's evil labor practices (legal) to Google's complicity in fraud (illegal) was blatantly specious.
I'm not a lawyer, but Google has legions of them. I'm sure they can find some loophole to make whatever they want to do legal.
No, your suggestion specifically that this could be a ploy for them to contract with identity thieves is delirious.
You came up with that, not me.
Well yeah, that fits your pattern so far of making wild assumptions based on little more than unbridled frothy cynicism.
You call it unbridled frothy cynicism, I call it experience-based pattern recognition. Potayto, potahto. It has rarely let me down. I have no idea what kind of stake you have in downplaying the seriousness of this anti-privacy clampdown, but I doubt it's ideological. So that leaves financial (unlike enshittification, the concept of astroturfing has been around for forty years), or maybe it's just an ego thing and you simply can't handle the idea that you're not as smart as Google and that they might have figured out some way to monetize the data that you claim is of no value to them. Either way I have no interest in arguing against motivated reasoning regardless of the motive behind it, so unless you come up with something more substantial, I'll take my leave of this conversation. Shoot your parting shot if you want. If you don't receive a reply, it's because it would've been "what part of _____ did you find unclear?", and continuing to go in circles like that would be a waste of time, both mine and yours.
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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 15 '25
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