Data collection and privacy concerns have been growing for years ever since the public found out big tech companies were profiting off their personal data. Now with data throughout the digital landscape being stealthily scraped by companies for the purpose of generative AI, old concerns about data and privacy are being renewed and new fears about the theft of intellectual property have risen.

One win(?) is a new partnership being formed between Google and Stack Overflow. The idea is that instead of just stealing the data they want from the programming community forum, the tech giant will pay to access the many questions and answers about Google Cloud Services to fuel their Gemini chatbot which will provide coding assistance and technical support through the Google Cloud CLI. Many details have been left out, but the partnership sets an example for other companies to do the ethical thing and pay the “owners” for use of their content instead of just stealing it.

The irony is that most of the “content” on Stack Overflow is not even from people working at Stack Overflow itself as it is a community-sourced project that is built on collaboration without a price tag. The “content” is created by individuals who do not get paid and will most likely never see a dime for their contributions. So while this partnership is a step in the right direction and will hopefully lead to more companies paying for the resources are using to build their products, it is not a perfect example of the type of intellectual property that really needs to be protected.