If you type the current year into your calculator, and then hit subtract, and then you type the year I was born in to your calculator, it shows you how old I am.
But that's protected information! You could use that to discriminate against me! Texas Instruments, must modify their SUBTRACTION ALGORITHM to not show how old I am!!!
A number on a calculator is data, not information.
Do you want a perfect search algorithm that knows no bounds? Would you be okay with it finding a webcam stream into your home? Or phone or your GPS? Would you be okay with making searching everything you have ever visited online or said to someone? Would you be okay with this search algorithm to allow finding your political allegiances?
No? There has to be some limit then. That comes from people and enshrined by the actions of people, constituting common courtesy.
A search algorithm can only search what it is allowed to search.
If you don't want a search engine to find a webcam stream of your home, then don't allow a search algorithm to index it.
Don't put it online in the first place, or if you do restrict access to people with a log-in.
> Would you be okay with making searching everything you have ever visited online or said to someone?
If I want to allow a search engine to access that information, then yes. GMail does search everything I have GMail'ed to or from people. That's incredibly useful. Chrome History Search does let me search sites I have visited.
> Would you be okay with this search algorithm to allow finding your political allegiances?
If I post, "I, Viking Coder, am a tea party Conservative," then yes. (I'm not, by the way.)
> No?
I didn't answer "no" to any of your questions.
> There has to be some limit then.
Yes, people need to limit what information they, themselves, SHARE.
And if someone else shares something ABOUT YOU with everyone else on the internet, then you should be mad at them.
The fact that the search engine is a magnifying glass / microscope / index tool that allows you to search the data on the internet doesn't give me any right to be mad at that tool.
The article and discussion is not about what you yourself put online, it is what others put online about you which is then indexed. The cost of removing from an index is insignificant compared to the personal cost to the person.
Only that Google is responsible for the effects of their service.
To a limit though, right? I mean, you wouldn't expect Google to be sued because someone bombed a location they got directions to via Google Maps. So, why in this case are they any more responsible?
Certainly there are limits. That's why it is an issue for courts and legislatures to decide what they should be. My argument is simply that it's entirely appropriate for courts to decide based on the social harms and that 'it's just an algorithm' is utterly irrelevant.
Common courtesy should not be encoded into law.
If you type the current year into your calculator, and then hit subtract, and then you type the year I was born in to your calculator, it shows you how old I am.
But that's protected information! You could use that to discriminate against me! Texas Instruments, must modify their SUBTRACTION ALGORITHM to not show how old I am!!!
Google is just a SEARCH ALGORITHM.