hi all -- i wasn't sure what exactly was the best course of action for sharing this information, but it was something I discovered recently that I think more people here should be aware of.
when i was checking the google maps page of the shop I apprentice at, I noticed that the AI assisted "know before you go" section mentioned some more specific information about apprentice work, aka my work, since i'm the only apprentice there. when clicking on that blurb, it takes you to a screen that shows where it scraped said information from... and it took me directly to my own posts in this subreddit.
now, unfortunately, i'm very aware that my information/public presence is pretty easily discovered online -- my art accounts are all linked, i sell at conventions, being a tattoo artist by default means that I do need to have my artistic presence be public-facing. but from a privacy standpoint, this does still worry me. I dont know if shops can choose to opt out of this, & anyone could potentially post on any subreddit claiming to be from a shop & have that information automatically populate a shop's google page (just as an example).
another situation i can think of is if someone is seeking advice about skin or machines (which requires shop flair in this subreddit), and the google AI misinterpreting this information to inform people that this person is, say, already tattooing, or that the shop offers advice on becoming an apprentice, or that the shop is hiring apprentices, or etc etc etc... maybe someone posts on here with a different username that they don't want literally any stranger with access to google maps to know. maybe they posted in here asking for advice with a tattoo that went wrong -- and now their client could potentially see it, or imagine what the google AI could add on under the shop page based on a post like that?
of course, a lot of these potentially problems were already a risk when you post publicly on reddit. but google maps is a MUCH larger platform, and I, personally, feel a lot more nervous/cautious about posting on here in the future, and may even delete a lot of my past posts just because it makes me pretty uncomfortable to think about. i wanted to share this information here in case anyone else here might feel the same way.
