At a glance, ethics in software engineering may not seem like much, but the general notion of doing no harm with the code written can be harder than it looks. To me, ethics in software engineering boils down to not harming people, or violating their privacy without consent, with the product presented by the code and making efficient code that is understandable and only does what is needed. Writing efficient code makes things easier for another software engineer to jump in easily, which lowers the risk that a harmful bug enters the code. This measure to mitigate the amount of hoops to jump through in order to add or change a feature is a duty that I believe falls within the ethics of software engineering, but one must not forget to always look out for the user when trying to streamline processes.
In ethics, intent is only half of the ethical battle, and when it came to Google’s StreetView feature, it lost the other half of the battle. Under the assumption that Google had only good intentions when making the StreetView feature, the end result was that many people were unwillingly exposed by the pictures taken by Google, including some photos that would not be safe for work. The exposed people would then be recognized by those who knew them, and many things could happen, from embarrassment to the loss of their job. However, this is following the assumption that Google had good intentions, in actuality Google had lost both sides of the battle as they planned to not only take the street view photos, but they also collected private information from unencrypted networks. Google did not act in the best interest of society, and instead went for personal gain at the expense of others. Although the project time may have taken longer, Google could have coordinated with places more to get clear shots of areas and have minimal to no people in the pictures which helps mitigate or solve the issue of people being exposed without consent. However, there is no excuse for the hidden collection of people’s private information. In conclusion, the ethical stance I take for this case is that Google was unethical, even if Google had good intentions with their actions, which is most likely not the case. Google prioritized self gain over the people and both directly and indirectly harmed people.