nezumi

I'd love to make a small change to the English language. When speaking of speculation and rent-seeking activities, don't say "make money", say "obtain money". Reserve the term "making money" for activities which create value.

Just try it: how successful and glamorous does your rich banker friend seem when you describe him as an obtainer, rather than as a creator of wealth?

Terrible reporting. Improving health outcomes by AI analysis of patient data is a much bigger prize - morally and commercially - than anything which could be achieved through ad targeting. Google is far too smart to squander such an opportunity by abusing patients' trust.

You have to account for competition.

Suppose there are two companies with the same business model, operating in the same countries etc. One files taxes "fairly" and one minimizes its tax burden as far as the law will allow. Which one do you think is going to be in business for longer? Which one would you buy shares in?

You can get as angry as you like at the companies, or the legislators, but in the end it's the system you need to be scrutinizing.

If I were in this position I would find the appropriate internal legal counsel and cc them on the email, including the words 'client attorney privileged and confidential' at the top. This affords some protection against discovery were the information to become relevant in legal proceedings. Taking that additional caution on behalf of the company shows professionalism on your part and will be appreciated by management who will see you're trying to contain and redress the situation rather than put the company at risk, in which case you may be seen instead as the risk.

Another thought- it's possible that your supervisor's manager is aware of the action being taken against you. You might be able to get better advice talking to someone in a different reporting chain if you can find them.

The last time I had a problem with ATT I had to make multiple calls and spent over an hour in total on hold. How would you charge for that?

I'd have gladly paid for someone to take that pain away. There's probably a viable business model in there somewhere if someone can independently put a competent customer service layer in front of companies like ATT.

This would be perfectly fair if there were a reliable way for ad-supported sites to restrict access to only clients which aren't running an ad blocker.

I don't live in SF but I work for a Bay Area company and have often wondered, while waiting to get onto one of those shiny buses, why a city with such a high concentration of rich, smart people is failing its least fortunate residents so miserably and obviously. Why are the technological elite so helpless in the face of this problem on their own doorstep?

Reading the comments here it seems that there is a massive gap in understanding, empathy and plain old data - are there no studies answering the questions being speculated on here?

If you could find a way to address that gap of understanding - provide the technologists with data, and fully describe the constraints - perhaps there can be a useful discussion in the technology community.