Google CEO Says Privacy Worries Are For Wrongdoers 671
bonch writes "In a surprising statement to CNBC, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told reporter Maria Bartiromo, 'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.' This will only fuel concerns about Google's behavior as it becomes an ever more powerful gatekeeper of information; though Google says it is aware of these concerns and has taken steps to be transparent to users about the information that is stored."
Don't be evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
With that attitude, I guess Google will have to start worrying about privacy!
Herpes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Herpes is not a crime, but I bet if you had it you would want to keep that fact private.
Privacy for Wrongdoers (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that everyone is a wrongdoer by someone's definition.
Right (Score:5, Insightful)
But whatever, by his logic he'd be happy to share his credit card details and the key-code to his security at home?
Re:Context? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Context? (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole concept smacks of intellectual tyranny. The problem as I see it is one of oversight. I don't see electronic paper as any more public than the contents of your briefcase. For some reason government and just about everyone else seems to think that your electronic communications are free game. Why? They need a warrant to tap your phone and tampering with snail mail is a federal crime.
If a government agency wants to look at what you're doing, they should need a search warrant issued by a judge under clearly devised rules of evidence.
Or perhaps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or perhaps if I have something that I don't want anyone to know, it's NONE OF THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS! I'm tired of this presumption of guilt that's become all the rage these days. We really need to get these idiots out of positions of power.
Re:Context? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are a moron. Google Search logging the queries is not the problem. Google Analytics is. If I query Google it really isn't that surprising that they know what I am searching for. But they really shouldn't know every single time I visit Slashdot, without even using Google to get there.
And here again the problem is not that I can't protect me against that. I can. The problem is that the vast majority of web users doesn't even know about it.
It's this kind of attitude... (Score:5, Insightful)
Same old fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an obvious fallacy. The old "You have nothing to worry about if you're doing nothing wrong" argument rests on a belief in perfect justice. You'll only be punished for things which you shouldn't be doing. However, history is riddled with examples of people doing and being things for which they should not be punished, but are. Like black, gay, catholic and/or protestant in Northern Ireland, Jewish, a journalist anywhere the state doesn't want its secrets told, etc. It assumes punishments fit the crimes, which in many cases they obviously don't, like becoming a registered sex offender for peeing on a tree in a world where you can kill someone without becoming a registered murderer. You have nothing to worry about if you're not doing anything anyone in the world considers wrong.
News flash: You -are- doing something someone in the world considers wrong.
This is a flawed argument (Score:5, Insightful)
There are lots of things which are perfectly legal yet something one would prefer to keep private.
My favorite example is a primary school teacher who happens to like BDSM sex. People who are into this adhere to the Safe, sane and consensual [wikipedia.org] principle. (Note: NSFW image in Wikipedia article.) In short, whatever happens happens between consenting adults.
Yet I'd wager that given the average primary school class at least one of the parents will throw a fit if they find the kids' teacher is "a sick pervert".
So no, it's not as simple as simply abstaining from anything you wouldn't like other people to know. This is an extreme example, but I'm sure other people can come up with more subtle ones if need be.
Re:Privacy for Wrongdoers (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, and some are wrongdoers by almost everybody's definition and others are the opposite - if the quote is correct (in itself and in its context) Google has a bright opportunity to lead the pack by putting all their documents etc. on the web for scrutiny.
Re:Context? (Score:5, Insightful)
By the way, before you flame me into oblivion, I am a supporter of a free Tibet, and would love nothing more than to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama returned to his rightful place in Tibet.
Mr. Schmidt's financial details are online where? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Eric Schmidt told reporter Maria Bartiromo, 'If you have something that you
> don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first
> place.'
Has a Webcam in his bedroom, does he? I can find his medical records with a Google search? Everything he says at board meetings is published?
Re:Context? (Score:1, Insightful)
You are right, but the statement that he made is completely different that what comes out of the summary. In the summary it reads like if he said that you should just let anyone collect all your personal data, since there can be no harm if you don't do anything wrong/illegal/immoral. What he really said was that if you use google to search for illegal information, you shouldn't be surprised if it lands in the hands of the authorities. We can debate about whether that is good or not and we can debate what should be legal and what shouldn't (and I personally think it's wrong to log anything beyond what is necessary for technical reasons), but the fact remains that the summary is completely misleading.
Google is the symptom. (Score:3, Insightful)
Google is just a victim of laws that we as citizens let eat away at our privacy. Google cant withold information that the governments asks for if it doesnt have any support in law.
Its also easy to forget that Google is just one player, ask yourself what other information is readily avaliable except internet logs? Utilities, water, credit receipts, health records, travels etc etc. Even if you could be 100% anonymous on the internet your private life is still non existent.
The problem is that privacy has been abolished everywhere and people just dont seem to care about it. History repeats itself, again and again...
Re:Context? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't google-analytics shortly after doubleclick in everyone's host file, DNS, adblock, or other filter of choice?
Re:transparency vs. storing at all (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Context? (Score:2, Insightful)
No...no it isn't.
In my case, it's before doubleclick, but that's not the point. You and I, along with the majority of /. readers, are the ones who not only know how to do it but more importantly we know TO do it.
For the vast majority their Google searches, along with most of their browsing, might just as well be posted on the grocery store bulletin board for all to see.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Context? (Score:5, Insightful)
'I'm sure there are those who feel that Google should be willing to "stand up" to the Chinese Government, but when you boil it down to the basics, there is nothing obliging Google as a company to engage in this fight.'
I wonder why Google doesn't disclose the search terms they do censor in China? Perhaps they 'don't want anyone to know' because they 'shouldn't be doing it in the first place.'...
Re:This is a flawed argument (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure in lot of places, being gay, having the wrong faith, vote for the wrong party, read the wrong book,
Anyway under the same assumptions, why should voting be kept private ? After all you have nothing to hide - and there is really nothing you would do in the voting booth that could be considered illegal
Privacy is for wrongdoers, like Founding Fathers? (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder how Thomas Paine, George Washington, and the rest felt about the need for privacy and secrecy in late 1776?
I wonder how those running the Underground Railroad felt about the need for privacy prior to the end of legal American slavery?
I wonder how those who have "alternative lifestyles" feel about keeping certain facts away from their employers and family members?
I wonder how Google's employees and executives would feel if Human Resources records were open to the world?
Privacy is for everyone.
Re:Privacy for Wrongdoers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Context? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an excellent example. If you're buying weed, don't use Google to do it. However, if you're Googling how to buy weed, that doesn't imply that you have, or will, and that's where things like this worry me. I might Google how to buy weed because I want to know how my kids might try to do it, so I can prevent it. I'm reminded of those high profile murder cases (Caylee Anthony springs to mind) where the suspect's computer is searched and they find they searched for something suggestive of the crime. We hear about that. We don't hear that 5,000,000 other people performed that same web search during that period of time, and given that 5,000,000 people didn't turn up dead soon after, we can assume they didn't go off and kill someone.
The problem with invasions of privacy like this isn't so much the release of fact. Ok, so you googled BDSM, to borrow someone else's example. Googling BDSM is relatively innocuous. Oh, but now we're going to assume you are interested in BDSM, or maybe that you participate in it, and that you're a bad person. Dangerous. Not to be trusted around kids and small animals. Shouldn't have a job that exposes you to anyone you might abuse, and in fact, since you have such a job, you should be fired. The problem is the inappropriate leaps from fact to wild, mostly baseless speculation. We can't keep people from making those leaps. We can keep them out of what should be our private affairs.
What about legal but not popular? (Score:4, Insightful)
I completely agree with your point about context being very important, but there are many legal things people may search for which they still might not want to be public knowledge.
Suppose you did some searches on atheism, then non-believers were the target of the next witch hunt?
How about looking for information about an STD that you've contracted. Do you want everyone to know about that?
What about questionably illegal activities? Suppose you and your wife decide to try anal sex and search for some advice on avoiding problems. What if you live in a state (not sure there still are any) where that is illegal?
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems true enough these days.
Although I'd rather counter their logic with:
I don't want my girlfriend to know I'm buying her a nice set of ear rings for Christmas. I guess I shouldn't be doing it then...
Re:Context? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a time to fight and a time let it be. If Google didn't agree to the terms it would not have operated in China, leaving the Chinese citizens with less exposure to the outside world. It is not evil, it is following the rules and trying to provide the most good legally possible. The legal system is evil not google.
Re:Context? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they going for illegal? Immoral? Unethical? Embarrassing? This list is neither all inclusive or all exclusive.
Is this only with Google? I'd expect "Be Evil(TM)" Microsoft to act like this, even if they said they weren't. Is there a search engine that won't reveal your secrets? If there is, that's where you should go for secret searching.
Or use a proxy.
This is totatally unacceptable. (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe Mr. Schmidt would do well to remember the time he complained in the media about the fact that a lot of his personal details, including his address, etc - were found in Google search. Apparently he was doing something wrong, and had devious plan - I mean, if we listen to Mr. Schmidt, his apparent concerns at the time were enough to justify many articles in the mainstream press....Hashe been investigated yet?
Maybe Mr. Schmidt shouldn't be the CEO of a company that deals with so much personal information if he doesn't understand the need for privacy and how important it is to most people.
The argument he makes is the weakest argument people who advocate destroying personal privacy can make - and one of the worst things about it, and something they never seem to consider is that it is a COMPLETELY UNAMERICAN argument, and the reason I say this is because it assumes that the authorities (government) are completely infalliable and should be trusted. One of the main premises of the way our system is supposed to work is checks and balances, they point of which is that we aren't supposed to trust authorities, this is WHY we have checks and balances....and corporations - please.
Re:Context? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder why Google doesn't disclose the search terms they do censor in China? Perhaps they 'don't want anyone to know' because they 'shouldn't be doing it in the first place.'...
Or perhaps, they've been told by the Chinese Government that a condition of them being provided access to internet users in their country is that they censor various searches, and not disclose that information to the public. While I personally disagree with any form of government censorship, I can at least separate out Google's desire to do business from some implied moral obligation they ought to feel. I'm not saying it's savory, but it's really not any more incendiary than many, many other businesses.
A lot of us buy clothing or other items that are made in China, complete with all of the horrible working conditions that the people are exposed to, but we don't feel that Nike, Wal-Mart, Fruit-of-the-Loom, or whoever else should "stand up" to the Chinese Government, so why should Google be any different? I'm not saying it's right, but it's hardly unique.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get Google fanboyism. I really don't. Every time something like this happens, we get some idiots who are in love with Google the way geeks loved Microsoft in the early days when they were the little guys taking down Big Nasty IBM making up some absurd reason why what they are doing is just fine and that Google couldn't *possibly* do anything wrong, because, after all, their corporate slogan proves it.
Google hasn't been a friendly garage company for years now, they are a Big Nasty Megacorp looking to squeeze every ounce of value from us they can, and their method of doing that is even more invasive than Microsoft's.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:1, Insightful)
No no no... The CEO says you are an evil law breaking criminal if you want privacy. He is making sure Google becomes "transparent to users". My interpretation of this: all users have access to all emails, documents, pictures, and videos belonging to all other users. Because privacy is wrong and you are an evil anti-democratic anti-capitalist if you say otherwise!
I am pretty sure there is some lesson about throwing rocks and living in glass houses, but I can't remember because these crazy CEO's talking crazy are making me crazy.
Nothing to hide... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem I have with this sort of stuff is look at Tiger Woods, even President Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc...
People without skeletons in their closet are extremely rare. Nearly everybody has something to hide, if not from criminal matters, from embarrassing personal matters.
Then again, yeah, if you lack even those personal embarrassments, you really do have nothing to fear. But then, most people who make these statements DO have skeletons in their personal closets, and sometimes their own laws catch them.
Re:Context? (Score:3, Insightful)
In Russia... (Score:1, Insightful)
The KGB used to say "If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to worry about." Then you knew you were in trouble. They would always find something to pin you down.
Oh, and by the way... In Russia, DNS searches you!
Re:Google is the symptom. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Google cant withold information that the governments asks for if it doesnt have any support in law."
No, but if they don't log it in the first place then there's nothing to hand over when the law comes knocking.
Re:Nothing to hide... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Will Google be doing all negotiations in public from now on?
What a moronic thing to say Mr. Schmidt...
OK, now I'm officially worried (Score:3, Insightful)
That statement is exactly in line with the ugly police state mentality that asks, "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what are you worried about?" The answer is that as a responsible, law-abiding adult in a free society, you have the RIGHT to go about your lawful business and live your life without interference from either the government or other citizens.
There are many, many things some people within a free society might disapprove of, and they might very well have the opportunity to affect your life. Try getting hired at a company full of true believers if you happen to be an atheist...and they know it. Or watch what happens to your kids if your standards of acceptable behaviour (though legal) aren't the community norm.
If that's what Eric Schmidt actually believes, he's a crypto-fascist, and we'd better start keeping a very close eye on Google.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
There have been maybe ten stories about Google becoming "the evil empire" in the last week or so. It seems to be a running theme right now.
Still, Google keeps introducing interesting new technologies based on open standards, open sourcing them, and making data export easy (just look at the new "dowload all" button on GDocs)[1 [dataliberation.org]]. Heck, Wave is open source and federated. This doesn't even begin to cover the help they give FOSS through GSoC.
Once Google stops being open and starts trying to lock me into their services, then I'll be worried (until then I just make regular back-ups). As it is, they recommend Firefox and IE8 alongside Chrome, rank Flickr above Picasaweb in search [google.co.th], and support Mac and Windows more than they do their own ChromeOS. Can we seriously compare that to IBM's deeds of the 70s or MS's in the 80s and 90s?
People keep screaming "evil," but I'm just not seeing it. They're being "nicer" than any other multi-billion corp I can name.
Re:Right (Score:3, Insightful)
There are tons of comments like this: how can you not realize that you prove his point?
Since he does not want those details online he does not put them online. Because, I have to tell you, if you put something online, then it may happen that it goes online.
If you send information on the wire it's leaving your home, like your mail. And like your mail and your phone line it is protected, but only to some extent. Even your credit card transaction logs may be examined by the cops if they are relevant in a criminal case.
And I bet that he does not google his credit card number anyway.
Oh, okay. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Context? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or perhaps, they've been told by the Chinese Government that a condition of them being provided access to internet users in their country is that they censor various searches, and not disclose that information to the public.
Well, sorry, but that's not the game we're playing. The mantra that if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear does not often come with the rider "unless you have good reasons for keeping it secret, in which case that's OK and we'll let you off".
People like Google's Schmidt (if his statements are faithfully reported here, which seems to be in dispute) and Sun Chairman Scott "Privacy is dead; deal with it" McNealy don't give a damn about anyone else's privacy when it serves their business interests to view the world in black and white. For them to argue that it's OK to do something the public would disapprove of, because someone or something or some rule made it the only practical way to run their business, would be hypocrisy.
Privacy is about being a human being (Score:2, Insightful)
``If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.''
What a great idea!
. . . said the teenage girl impregnated by her stepfather
. . . said everyone everywhere who has a disease that they want to keep secret
. . . said the Chinese dissident trying to communicate with her child
People use envelopes on their personal letters to be private, not criminal. People keep their medical, and other, records private because they're personal. ``None of your business'' does not mean ``I'm committing a crime.''
Privacy is about being a human being.
I shouldn't be... (Score:3, Insightful)
Doing anything new or innovative.
Taking pride in my work.
Discussing trade secrets with colleagues.
Discussing competitive business strategies.
Uisg any word that could be misunderstood my someone as something illegal.
A few years ago, I was at a bar with a client. He had observed in his web-site logs that many of his visitors arrive from searches for "child pornography". My client is a comedian, and one of his blogs used the words within a joke. Suddenly, some drunken idiot from across the bar stumbled over with the intent of physically brutalizing us -- having overheard two words out of two hundred. Needless to say, drunken stumbling idiots aren't difficult to subdue.
Re:Context? (Score:3, Insightful)
[citation needed]
There is no law in any jurisdiction with which I am familiar that requires corporate entities of any type to maximise the money made for shareholders no matter what acts may be necessary to do so. Indeed, there are companies who make a point of being ethical in some sense, and this is typically part of the attraction of those companies to their shareholders, employees and clients/customers alike. And of course it is by definition illegal for companies to increase the profit they make by breaking the law, which is one reason why real privacy and data protection laws are long overdue in most places.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
I oppose blanket surveillance, whether by a government or by a corporation. If Google is of the opinion that I shouldn't have a right to privacy then Google is evil. Simple as that.
Re:Context? (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow. You need some perspective. Google is attempting to follow the local laws in countries in which it does business. Google also censors in Germany in accordance with the local laws, and has been sued several times over slip-ups.
China is a totalitarian government. I'm very aware of that. While I was living in Beijing, I was dragged into a room and questioned over who I had conversations with. Educated people that I went to school with there were forced into jobs they didn't want and excluded from education they had the right to.
Don't conflate Google with the PRC. If you want to make Google evil over this, then Boeing, Apple, and virtually every other multi-national corporation is equally evil for doing business in the PRC and obeying the local laws there. While you're at it, you'll probably need to stop buying most of your computer parts and electronics gear.
The short version of this comment is: there is no embargo against the PRC, unless you are in the UNPO.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Once Google stops being open and starts trying to lock me into their services, then I'll be worried"
We hear this all the time. By that logic, Microsoft doesn't force you to use Windows, therefore they are not evil.
Google's money that they pay into GSoC pales in comparison to their revenue. It wouldn't even be a rounding error. Furthermore, it's a tax break (they set up a charitable fund for this purpose) and the money put into it is considered marketing expenses. It's not altruism, it's just creative marketing.
Google's whole strategy is setting up a Google-centric infrastructure that you depend on for email, social networking, business interaction and just about everything else. They want to *be* your Internet, and they are spending enormous amounts of cash building themselves to be your One Unified Service.
Ensuring that geeks love them by giving candy to the FOSS movement and acting all David-y to Microsoft's Goliath is necessary for that strategy. It's got *nothing* to do with philanthropy, and you're naive if you don't see it. Google is a company, and company's don't give away free things. TANSTAAFL. When will you learn?
Way to go, Google (Score:3, Insightful)
You just alienated the largest pool of geeks on the Internet.
"You may think you're not doing anything wrong, but you may indeed be wronging someone you don't know."
"But who defines what's wrong?"
"Someone you don't know."
Excuse me while I iron my burka...I'll probably be needing it soon, just to be sure I'm not breaking any future laws.
Famous last words. (Score:2, Insightful)
What about the employees? (Score:3, Insightful)
We've all heard the stories of people walking out of Federal Research Laboratories with paperwork and thumb drives full of information such as Jessican Quintana [blogspot.com]. While stealing nuclear secrets might be a bit harder to use/sell than say 10million email addresses plus associated personal information. I'd be a bit more concerned about some angry employee grabbing a tape (which I doubt they back much up to tape) or just copying off some data onto a thumb drive and walking out the door.
This might not be so hard under their "20% personal projects plan"...
"Hey boss, I've got an idea for a personal project.. I'd like to create a google map that maps someone and all of their friend's email addresses on it! Kind of like overlaying their email address next to their home address and phone number. I just need access to that personal data."
While the CEO can say all sorts of stuff about privacy, there's nothing stopping some kid who makes 1000x less than the CEO and will never become a millionaire from walking out the door with this information and becoming a millionaire that way. If you don't want people to know a secret, don't tell them. Google shouldn't be allowed to collect this stuff anyhow, that way it can't leak out to begin with.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
I will accept that I have occasionally verged onto Google fandom, and that it can somewhat blind me to the dangers that Google can present. But I can explain why it has such appeal for many of us:
1. A deeply intellectual corporate cultural, with 70% of its workforce having PhDs (I don't know if this is still true.) This includes the "20%" concept, whereby all Google staff is given free-reign to research what interests them 1 day out of 5. Google, to me, recalls the days of business-as-research-endeavor, the era of Xerox Parc and Bell Labs and the intellectual energy they represented.
2. A friendliness to open source unmatched by any other major company.
3. A very open ecosystem, with freely available APIs. And, an absence of pretense that the ecosystem is closed or finished. I rather like that Google is in "perpetual beta" (though it can get frustrating, especially when they abandon a project.)
4. Lots of free stuff to play with. Unlike Apple, you don't need to be a well-heeled consumer to play pretty much in all parts of the Google "playground."
5. The sense that they are moving the functions of the library into the 21st century.
Nonetheless, you are right. They are gatekeepers for much of the world's information at this point. We need to be more skeptical and hold Google accountable for the considerable power they now possess.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
People keep screaming "evil," but I'm just not seeing it. They're being "nicer" than any other multi-billion corp I can name.
You don't even see it after this direct quote from the CEO? He's effectively saying that privacy is immoral, and private people are shameful.
Sure Google occasionally releases open code, but code is a means to an end, and on the web that end is for the common man to publish anything he wishes. What's the point of open code if you have to use it the way Google mandates?
It reminds me of an old Peanuts comic I once read. Lucy is running a root beer stand with a sign that says "all you can drink for $1". Charlie Brown walks up to her stand and gives her a dollar, and Lucy gives him a tiny cup of root beer. When Charlie Brown inquires about the sign Lucy tells him "It's not false advertising - that's all you can drink for $1".
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:2, Insightful)
Once Google stops being open and starts trying to lock me into their services, then I'll be worried
I agree with you in general terms, but that particular phrase gave me the shivers...
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:2, Insightful)
My personal information is available to Google and I did not opt in, and they use information on myself and my family to make money.
And you don't see any possible issue with that?
What color is the sky in your world?
Re:Nothing to hide... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or they have something to sell you. Marketers: Shooo! Go away! Leave me alone.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously, they've never heard of that "Just because I have nothing to hide doesn't mean I want to live in a Police state"
Other things "fuck privacy" is (Score:3, Insightful)
The argument he makes is the weakest argument people who advocate destroying personal privacy can make - and one of the worst things about it, and something they never seem to consider is that it is a COMPLETELY UNAMERICAN argument
I think it's also rather undanish, ungerman, unnorwegian, probably very unswedish, not particularly finnish either, etc.
True, Google is seated in Mountain View, CA, in the US. But it operates elsewhere, and will probably need to respect local laws in ${not the USA}.
Re:Nothing to hide... (Score:4, Insightful)
The answer here would be that I can already share my music tastes or today's breakfast (maybe because I'm blogging about music or posting a restaurant review), IF I WANT TO.
No one should force me to disclose personal information to the authorities without a judicial order, much less to a private corporation.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I do in the privacy of my home is private.
If I am planning on running for an elected office, or just on getting along with my neighbors I might not want the world to know I frequent atheist and rational humanism websites. This is not a joke. People get harassed for not believing the "right" thing.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always expected privacy on the internet. The same way I expect privacy in my car while driving to work.
Sure, random people can see me dancing to a song, shaving, eating and talking on the cell while driving with one knee, but particular people can't and there is no record of it. Google (well EVERYONE-- the government and every company) wants to put a camera in my car now, actually- a camera on me-- any time I'm out in public, everything I do recorded since i have no right to privacy in public, right?
Hell no- we expect privacy of a certain kind in public as well. We expect privacy from surveillance without cause. We expect our actions will not be permanently recorded.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
What, you thought there was some clearly delineated boundary between the public's right to know and individual privacy? Information wants to be free, even if it's about you.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:2, Insightful)
First of all, whatever he had in mind, he used very unhappy words to express it.
Now, it's not the first time that I see the kind of association you made. The problem is not if the internet protects your privacy or not. The problem is a company intentionally breaking your privacy for profit, because nobody should have expected any in the first place.
I know you were hoping for it, so here's the car analogy:
If I park my car on a parking lot of a mall, I can't expect my car's license to remain private to me, but I wouldn't appreciate the mall selling information to third parties of what my car looks like, how often I go to that mall, how often I go back home with things I bought and how many, if I'm left-handed or if I limp when I walk, and all that linked to this particular license plate, all that just because I parked there.
Next morning I try to get a new assurance, they'll infer that I should pay more because now they're able to discriminate me by a certain limping that they were not supposed to know anything about, or because I have the strange habit of going to the mall 5 times a week without buying anything.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
Google's money that they pay into GSoC pales in comparison to their revenue. It wouldn't even be a rounding error. Furthermore, it's a tax break (they set up a charitable fund for this purpose) and the money put into it is considered marketing expenses. It's not altruism, it's just creative marketing.
Any kind of altruism, unless truly anonymous, is marketing, or egoism (or both).
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get Google fanboyism. I really don't. Every time something like this happens...
What exactly has happened?
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
There may not have been the expectation of privacy, but there has been the expectation of anonymity, a very close cousin. "On the internet nobody knows if you're a dog." was the famous cartoon that summarized this. (Yeah, it also had other meanings. But that was one of them.)
Well, anonymity is pretty much gone, so now privacy has become quite important...and I don't care about how it used to be. Either one works, but you've got to have at least one of them.
Eric please post your Tax Returns (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
perhaps we could post footage of him making love to his wife... Either he shouldn't be making love to his wife, or he shouldn't be concerned about anyone seeing it, right?
Re:A poor comment by a CEO. (Score:3, Insightful)
You're so cutely naive that I want to pat you on the head.
Google is evil--they're a publicly traded corporation, dedicated to the stockholders and the executives. They have been quietly taking over the internet. They don't care about your privacy, they don't care about technology, they care about MONEY, and how to get more of it. That's all. This is old news, but they were smart enough to lean heavily on their "don't be evil" image to avoid being recognised for their actual behaviour.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
The main difference between Google and Facebook is that on one platform, you knowingly signed up and put data about yourself up for grabs. Google on the other hand is actively mining data from wherever it can, meaning it may connect some dots you rather not have liked to be publicly viewable.
Nobody is perfect and well-mannered all the time and some have hobbies and private ummm interests that they would share with like-minded individuals but not in Hell with the general public.
There's a ton of semi-personal information pieces that I can imagine their owners would never like to have it searchable, aggregated and accessible for Anon and everyone. Imagine the following tidbits (not from me or necessary and single individual, just as an example)
- being a member of a right wing party
- being a member of a left wing party
- being a member of a local chapter of the Ex-Muslims
- being a member of the local chapter of the Sunni or Shiite or Alevite Muslims
- being an author of Mohammed cartoons
- having voiced an opinion pro or contra abortions
- being gay, lesbian, transgendered
- not living a gay lifestyle but not minding the occasional meet with a man
- having recently won the lottery
- living with a serious disease
- having a married affair
- running for public office
All these personal habits, beliefs or lifestyles are perfectly legal and should raise no issues in a state of democracy and rule of law. But some people choose not accept that and will surely pester them with threats. violence or even assassination attempts.
That is what privacy is for: ensure that all law-abiding people are safe even IF someone chooses to ignore basic human rights by pressing their own way of life by violence and threats. Without privacy, democracy cannot live because it is squashed by silent but effective mob rule against 'dissidents' or some who don't conform to a certain ideal.
Face it: YOU (and that means everyone who can read this) regularly do SOMETHING that SOMEONE hates like hell and thinks it should be punished by violence or death. No matter if it is porn, pork, alcohol, tobacco, adultery, active religious life or whatever - Without anonymity, people would be a whole less free because they'd have to fear repercussions from everything they do - or did, thirty years ago while drunk in college, because Google never forgets anything.
This has happened before... time to be worried... (Score:3, Insightful)
The exact wording was different, because it's usually in a different language, but it's the same meaning.
Usually it's just before a totalitarian regime takes over.
That kind of thinking is always evil.
We've fought Wars of various kinds to block it.
Privacy isn't just a nicety, it's guaranteed in various forms by the Constitution of the United States of America.
Even that isn't it's origin as it's been accepted and expected by most of the worlds populace since time immemorial.
Don't let that evil blowhard get away with this, tell him your opinions.
Small bit of advice, be civil about it or they'll just round-file your messages.
(A thousand profanity filled attacks are worth less than one polite and reasoned statement.)
Privacy policy (Score:1, Insightful)
Then why does Google have privacy policy at all?
Have My Cake and Eat This. (Score:2, Insightful)
So how will I serve both? Simple: I'll stop using the internet entirely.
I'm sure you'll agree that this is the preffered solution for both parties: you get to keep using the information that you've already obtained freely (so long as it's legal), and I get to retain all of my personal information that I collect from this point forward.
I like this idea. In fact, I like it so much, I'm going to tell my friends to do it; most of them have issues that they want kept private, and the internet is only a source of idle time-wasting anyway. And they will tell theirs. Assuming the trend keeps up, after a while there won't be anyone left who uses the internet at all.
But that's not a big deal to you, right, Google? After all, it's not like the internet is part of your business in any way...
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
By google's reasoning, abortion doctor's shouldn't have any privacy and those people trying to post all their private information online (and we know exactly why they do that) should be allowed to do so. After all, if you're not a criminal, why do you care about privacy? It's not like anyone is going to murder you or anything. Oh... right.
And hey, while we're at it, let's post all the information about children who are adopted, molested, beaten, and abused. And let's post all the information about every rape victim. After all, if a rape victim isn't a criminal, why is she so concerned with privacy?
This extends to limitless examples and what it really comes down to is "because it's MY fucking information". So fuck them.
Then again, Google is the company that not only allows that "rip off report" guy's website to be indexed, but actually PROMOTES his extortion scam to the top of most search results (while most other search engines squelch or even remove the results entirely). The level to which google truly doesn't give a fuck about its customers is astounding.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm very happy that Google is one of the most open source friendly, but most of their major open source work is relatively recent. Sketchup, Picasa, and Google Earth are all applications that would have gained serious traction had Google opened up the code and let volunteers port them to different platforms and improve the code. They are also the biggest single user of the Linux kernel but have contributed very little back to the mainline tree. (Admittedly, they actually want to now, but Google's kernel bears little resemblance to the mainline kernel at this point, so it's not really practical on a technical level. But it would have been a lot easier if they contributed their changes from the start.)
Pretty sure it's not. Google's business is advertising and almost all of their branch offices scattered around the world are filled with staff that support mainly that aspect of their business.
Last I heard, "20% time" applied only to their engineers, the PhD types. And they're not given free reign, the projects have to have merit and get approved. The project has to have the potential to benefit the company somehow, even if indirectly.
Except that they tried to do this by force. I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for the publishing industry, but Google basically planned from the start to infringe on the copyright of almost every author/publisher with a book in the library and then negotiate forgiveness (in the form of an exclusive contract) later.
Remember a decade ago when clueless users thought AOL was the Internet? Although it won't surprise me, I'm hoping that we never get to the point where people think Google is the Internet.