Ex-Googler here, at least in the UK, privacy was taken very seriously by all employees, we never collected data without explicit consent and never used it for anything but what the user granted permissions for.

Also ex, for a reason, everyone with ethics left, and Google “is a conventional company” now

Edit: reference https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/#:~:tex...

Didn't Google release many data collection features as an "opt-out" setting (ie: without user consent)?

> privacy was taken very seriously by all employees, we never collected data without explicit consent and never used it for anything but what the user granted permissions for.

Except when you literally trick people into providing their data: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1664682689591377923 by pretending that your dark patterns are "explicit consent"

Or except when you literally trick people into providing their data by connecting totally unrelated services https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1908951546869498085 and you don't stop until the person gives up and submits to you.

Except when your own support explicitly says that your behaviour is tracked across completely unrelated Google services: https://x.com/TeamYouTube/status/1849952594992435493

Except when you literally sign people into user accounts automatically with most data collection options turned on.

Except...