If you missed Google’s Superbowl ad or just want to re-watch it, click above to see what all the fuss is about. And read on to see why on one prominent tech commentator called it “the most evil advertisement I’ve ever seen.”
Tech strategic advisor Shelly Palmer, who’s company, The Palmer Group, “works with Fortune 500 companies on digital transformation, marketing, strategy, data science, AI and machine learning,” is not a person I’d expect to lash out against a tech giant. But he was very offended by Google’s Superbowl commercial in which an elderly widower reminisces about his deceased wife, Loretta, after asking Google to show him pictures of them together and even play their favorite movie (Casa Blanca).
The commercial begins with a google search “how not to forget,” and throughout, the widower makes comments like “remember, Loretta hated my mustache,” to which Google replies “OK I’ll remember that.” And, at the end, the video shows all things that Google remembers from this user.
In his blog post, Palmer commented:
What Google doesn’t tell you about the service is what it will do with all of the extra data this widower has given it: how much better it will be able to target him, who they will be able to “sell” him to, etc., all without any warning. The service is “free” — not because the widower is the “product” that Google is selling, but because this man is a worker in the mines of Google.
Where is the product labeling? Where is the disclaimer that when you tell Google Assistant everything about the best parts of your life, the algorithm enriches your profile and Google becomes more profitable at your expense?
He added, “None of this would bother me if the ad had a disclaimer, or if the ad started with a younger relative adjusting the widower’s privacy settings in advance of his experience. This was an ad designed to make people who have no idea what Google does for a living (or how Google works) give Google their private data.”
Here’s my CBS News Eye on Tech segment about this commercial