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."
Context? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I think judgment matters.
Then we get a voice over and a cutaway. Then the snippet in question is suspiciously selected with nothing preceding it. That's his direct quote and it was stupid to say 'maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place' but what was said before it seems to be edited. If the context is search engines (which I think it is), then what he says is true. As in 'if you're looking for ways to murder your husband, maybe you shouldn't be using the Google Search engine to find that information in the first place.' Here's what follows the inflammatory statement:
But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines--including Google--do retain this information for some time ... um ... and it's important--for example that we are all subject to the United States Patriot Act--it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities.
I don't want to sound like a fanboy bending over backwards to absolve Schmidt but I want to point out that the important message people should take away from this is simply that your searches are not private. Your searches leave the premises of your private property. They go to a semi-public resting place where--under the Patriot Act--the government has the ability to access them with little commotion.
I mean, if you enjoy doing something illegal like smoking weed, don't do it in public. You shouldn't be doing it in public in the first place. Do it in the privacy of your own home. If you go to a cafe or place of business and smoke weed, the owner and workers at that cafe might be obligated to call the authorities. Similarly if you're buying weed, don't use the Google search engine to do it.
I would like to hear his whole unedited statement.
No wonder (Score:1, Interesting)
No wonder he says that, given that Google is very likely almost a branch of the NSA. (I say almost, because they were funded independently but seem to have very close ties to the NSA since the beginning.) Also, privacy prevents Google from selling all your personal information to advertisers.
Another one in a long row ... (Score:2, Interesting)
That's an arrogant statement by Schmidt (and yes, I read the whole thing). How often have we heard the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" argument over the decades? Add Google to that long list - and it's not an honor roll! I guess "Don't be evil" is leaving the building. It was a matter of time, anyway.
Re:Context? (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed, IF they are going to edit it to sell hits on their site then it's not news it's crap. Let's hope that someone releases an unedited transcript - Google perhaps? If this guy truly said something so stupid then providing the context to prove it shouldn't be a big deal right? And if in the end he was really that stupid then I think it should be everyone's sworn duty to crawl through any and all information he may have left laying around with a microscope and plaster it in bold headlines all over the place - just to prove a point about privacy :-)
Cue clarifying statement from Google in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....
Are my searches mine or Google's? (Score:2, Interesting)
Are the searches your property, or Googles? Really, if, truly, everything you write on the internet is your content, then you should have the right to revoke the distribution of that content. You can't have strong property rights only when it is convenient, you know.
Re:Context? (Score:4, Interesting)
Until we hear the quote *in context* then I think what Mr Schmidt said was bloody obvious!
Most people realise that if a web-type service is offered to you free then it is obvious the company involved is using your data for profit.
How else can they fund the service you are using?
I use google mail and of course use thier search services as well - I am fully aware that my data is being harvested so I am hardly going to something suspect.
Then again you have a *choice* to use Google services or not. But depending how much infrastructure Google want to get involved in will that *choice* become more difficult to take (e.g. DNS)?
If yoy feel strongly about this - use an alternative.
Re:Privacy for Wrongdoers (Score:2, Interesting)
Nothing to hide? (Score:5, Interesting)
Same false argument has been put forward to defend of CCTV.
I prefer to shit in privacy, but it seems Eric Schmidt doesn't.
He should read this article.
Solove, Daniel J., 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy. San Diego Law Review, Vol. 44, 2007; GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 289. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=998565 [ssrn.com]
Thank Your, Mr. Schmidt. (Score:4, Interesting)
At least this will give me something to do this morning.
Re:It's this kind of attitude... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Context? (Score:4, Interesting)
You're absolutely correct, nothing obliges Google from making money... even if it help someone else do evil. Sort of like all those people who supported the Nazis so they continue doing business with Germany prior to the US entry into WWII.
Yea someone can yell Godwin's Law, but in this case I see a eary similarity between US interests prior to the US entry into WWII and Google's dealings with China. Placing money before principles, and trying to absolve themselves by saying we're only doing what is required to do business with China.
Re:Context? (Score:3, Interesting)
I second this motion. The problem isn't that google knows you're doing it; if the US Gov't wants to know what you're doing online, they will know. The problem is that certain things which don't hurt anyone are illegal. The solution has nothing to do with google, unless perhaps they're harming people's attempts at advocacy. Given how trivial it is to find illegal information with google, that just doesn't wash.
In the mean time, don't put incriminating evidence online. It doesn't matter if google has it, or your ISP; either way, you don't want that information out.
Re:This is a flawed argument (Score:4, Interesting)
There are lots of things which are perfectly legal yet something one would prefer to keep private.
If you're after an example that is perhaps more rhetorically useful (and safe for work), try the fact that Google requires all its staff to sign confidentiality clauses in their contracts and has NDAs with its partners, not just about inventions but also about business plans -- does that mean that Google's business is something that it shouldn't be doing, or is Eric planning on striking all those confidentiality contracts?
Re:Context? (Score:3, Interesting)
You're absolutely correct, nothing obliges Google from making money... even if it help someone else do evil.
The flip side of this is that, if Google didn't censor searches, they'd be prohibited from being there at all. You can say that they should take a moral stand, but why is refusing to do business in China better than doing limited business, in this case? It's not like some other engine would spring up in Google's place that will allow these searches to work, so Google's presence doesn't leave the Chinese everyman any worse off than if they were absent, and in fact their presence makes it better in some ways. Given that, I can't agree that it directly parallels giving actual money to finance Hitler's rise to power.
Virg
Hunters - yet again (Score:3, Interesting)
This is about the third or fourth time I have posted this on Slashdot. I'm glad I copied the text of the post when I saw it. Please note, the text is not mine. I just found it brilliant, that's all.
Re:Context? (Score:4, Interesting)
What? How is not actively participating in the suppression of human rights, the same as strong-arming or invading a government?
Wow. So now you're rebuffing specific actions with generalities and character attacks? I have news for you, I turned down lots of money over principles. I can sleep at night - can you?
Re:Context? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been hearing that line of reason since Nixon visited China. We can change China from within.
What has this accomplished? China appears more palatable to westerners. US manufacturing went to China. The US has a huge trade deficit with China. China is now the US's largest debt holder. China stands to secure it's supply of fossil fuels with a deals signed in Iraq and Afghanistan and using US troops to protect their business interests.
All I see is China doing just enough to acquire western money and doing that well...
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:wow (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I reckon they're probably worse.
Microsoft is out to get your money. They do this by selling you as many Microsoft products as they can(sometimes whether you want them or not) and occaisionally knifing a competitor. Not exactly perfect behaviour, but predictable and relatively harmless. Microsoft doesn't really care what you do with their products so long as you pay for them. Want to write political manifestos in Word, Microsoft doesn't care. Features of Word may make your document easier to tie back to you, but it's other people doing the tieing.
Google on the other hand has been collecting information on everything they can for as long as they've been around, more and more and more every year. They know about your web searches, if you hit a web site with analytics, they own everthing you create in their application framework, now they're going to start logging your DNS searches.
Why are they doing this? I don't really know. At best they've falled into the "perfect information" trap and and have convinced themselves that if they just knew more about people they could make the world better. It's a common pitfall for IT workers, particularly the kind who are bright enough to get hired at google and sufficiently social retarded to willingly work the kind of hours the company seems to expect. Even that's not exactly a great situation and there are plenty of alternatives which are far more worrying.
Sure they've got to turn this stuff over to every government they deal with who wants it, that's part of doing business. Companies who disagree with that sort of thing tend to fight it by limiting their logging to what is legally required though, and Google sure does't do that.
Re:Context? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's really simple, for example even though I consider my bank account balance private there's probably quite a few people at the bank that at least theoretically could look at it. If I use Google apps to write a letter I consider private, it's in much the same situation. And yet, most letters I write are significantly less important or private than my bank accounts. "I can't put my letters on Google, or people would see what I write" is a bit like "I can't put my money in the bank, or people would see how much money I have". Many companies live that way too having outsourced all their basic IT, for the most part this works fine. I can see how Google doesn't provide total anonymity or privacy yet good enough for many people and those remaining people it isn't possible for Google to serve.
If you want total privacy and anonymity, you can't rely on anyone else. You have to do it all on your own computer, use anonymous networks, connect directly with your peers and not over backbones like email or facebook or skype, in short it's a whole different game. And if you're really paranoid about it, you probably want to encrypt and physically secure and make tempest-proof and screened software and... the list really goes on and on, and it doesn't stop until your computer is as secure as the deepest vault at the Pentagon. Google apps isn't the place for Top Secret documents and if that's your standard then neither it is for you.
It's all a matter of using it with reason. If you're using a google web app to edit pictures before putting them on your facebook or myspace or photo sharing site, what have you lost? Nothing. You were going to put them online at the mercy of a company and their privacy policy anyway. Which may or may not be a good idea in the first place, but at least it's fairly consistent.
Re:Mr. Schmidt's financial details are online wher (Score:3, Interesting)
Stupid or not, one can think of it as a Freudian slip, or maybe his 'Tiger moment'. Google clearly has inflated its corporate ego to Galactic size. They assume (with some justification at the moment) that they can do as they please because they are too big, smart, and rich to have to worry about repercussions. So now they even baldly state where they are coming from, because they think it doesn't matter.
Next job interview... (Score:1, Interesting)
None of my illegal activities are trackable online, but, one could probably determine that I'm atheist, vasectomized, childfree, mocking of most naivety (ie, religion and various other cultural norms), vegan, polyamourous, and have a porn addiction.
None of those things are illegal, but I sure as hell don't want this to be accessible information. My Facebook page reveals nothing but the veganism, and I fear that day when my browsing habits are enough to make more information publicly known. (maybe I shouldn't be posting it here).
Citation = Dodge v Ford Motor Company (Score:3, Interesting)
IANAL. However, this meme is based on this court decision: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Company [wikipedia.org]
The article linked offers a refutation of this interpretation, which I am not competent to support or argue with. I ran across this meme first while reading the book version of The Corporation [wikipedia.org], which may have helped spread it lately.
Add This to the List of Infamous Quotations (Score:3, Interesting)
Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft program manager, (1996): "If you want security on the 'Net', unplug your computer."
Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, (1999): "You, us folks, peasants, you already have zero privacy. Get over it."
Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, (2009): "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
Our corporate masters have always felt that our private lives are their property to abuse as they see fit.
Re:wow (Score:3, Interesting)
However, I DO now think that with that statement, that Google SHOULD be looked at a big closer.
Re:Context? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:1, Interesting)
Surprised he's that honest (Score:3, Interesting)
People have generally described this as a big misstep on Schmidt's part. Maybe it is, but only in that he revealed a bit more of Google's attitude than they normally do.
Google has been prancing around for years saying, "oh, don't worry about our data collection. We're the GOOD guys! We even have a motto that says don't be evil, and in fact we're so good that it's not even official." In the meantime, they've been behaving just like any other smart corporation in a sensitive monopoly position. It amazes me that nobody in the media and damned few people in the industry seem to care about what they're doing, just that they've said "don't be evil" and so everything is OK.
So either Schmidt has revealed more than he meant to (which would be a misstep), or he realises that they are so powerful that they don't have to pretend anymore. You can be sure, however, that he did NOT misrepresent Google or its values.
facepalm (Score:1, Interesting)
"Some tips to help keep your Google account safe: - Keep secrets! Never tell anyone your password, or your secret question and answer."
~ http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=29407
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
~ Google CEO Eric Schmidt
Well, you heard it from the CEO himself: if google says you don't want anyone to know your account login info, maybe you shouldn't have any in the first place.
Re:Don't be evil? (Score:2, Interesting)