Google reframed systemic data capture as one engineer’s isolated mistake

Evidence

Google characterized Street View’s “privacy violations” as a “mistake” made by a single engineer working on an “experimental” project, whose code had inadvertently made it into Street View’s software. The firm refused to release the identity of the mystery engineer and insisted that the project’s leaders were unaware of the data capture and “had no intention” of using those data. As Eric Schmidt told the Financial Times, “We screwed up,” noting that the engineer in question would face an internal investigation for his clear “violation” of Google’s policies. Unbowed, Schmidt insisted on the validity of Google’s mission to index all the world’s information. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 455

Categorization

• XREF: The scapegoating framing parallels corporate deflection narratives familiar from other industries. — connects to: Google’s scapegoating of a single engineer contradicted known internal evidence — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 457; Wi-Fi wardriving expertise drew the engineer into Google’s data collection — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 456; Framing technology as autonomous disguises who profits from data extraction — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 511 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Wi-Fi wardriving expertise drew the engineer into Google’s data collection #responds-to (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 456
• Framing technology as autonomous disguises who profits from data extraction #complicates (0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 511