The New York Times, Google The Atlantic, a Google spokeswoman said, “We’re taking these claims seriously and investigating them. The allegations regarding truthfulness and consent are in violation of our requirements for volunteer research studies and the training that we provided.” According to, Google temporarily suspended the data collection, pending an internal investigation. In an emailed statement to, a Google spokeswoman said, “We’re taking these claims seriously and investigating them. The allegations regarding truthfulness and consent are in violation of our requirements for volunteer research studies and the training that we provided.”

Daily News’s reporting suggests commodified black and homeless Americans, was intended to reduce racial bias. But as the Harvard technologist Shoshana Zuboff has argued, people have always been the “ It’s baffling that this purported scheme, which the’s reporting suggests commodified black and homeless Americans, was intended to reduce racial bias. But as the Harvard technologist Shoshana Zuboff has argued, people have always been the “ raw materials ” for Big Tech. Products such as the Pixel and the iPhone, and services such as Google and Facebook, collect our data as we use them; companies refine that data, and, with each new generation, sell us more advanced products that collect more useful data. In this framework, our habits, our choices, our likes, and our dislikes are not unlike soybeans or petroleum or iron ore—natural resources that are extracted and processed by huge firms, for massive profit.

Sometimes this looks like a smart thermostat getting better at predicting how cool you like your home, and sometimes it looks like a $1 trillion company allegedly offering $5 gift cards to homeless black people to better sell a $1,200 phone.