Mozilla Exec Urges Switch From Google To Bing 527
Andorin writes "Asa Dotzler, Mozilla's director of community development, has published a brief blog post in which he recommends that Firefox users move from using Google as their main search engine to Bing, citing privacy issues. Disregarding the existence of alternative search engines such as Ask and Yahoo, Dotzler asserts that Bing's privacy policy is better than Google's. Dotzler explains the recommendation with a quote from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google: 'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time...' Ars Technica also covers the story."
Privacy fears (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:$1,000,000 anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
my thought was, "Well, the check has cleared"
I hope that he is up on the IRS privacy policy when he reports it on his income tax...
Re:Google (Score:5, Interesting)
Idk, do you really expect any internet service to hold to their stated privacy policy? Yes, they may, or when the feds come a knockin', they might have not and the logs are chock full of stuff. Without a paying customer relationship, it's my understanding that it's pretty hard to have any enforceable reconcilation if they breach their word.
Considering that most browsers have a search bar, it would be nice if the browser could somehow implement anonymizing techniques independent of the specific search engine. Hell, charge money for it as a value-added service to route the search requests through their anonymizing server, which they promise not to log, for the paranoid user. I'd feel a lot better doing that than using some dubious Tor node.
The Blog Page (Score:5, Interesting)
Whoa, that page has some crazy background. Reminds me of something out of the 1990s.
Anyway, before all the conspiracy theorist posts pop up, this looks like it's just a post on his personal blog, which includes posts about his beard and other random things. Even if Mozilla was officially endorsing and getting paid for Bing searches, Google already has the same deal so there's no issue there.
Of course, this could just be a member of the Mozilla community jumping at the first chance to get back at Google for making Chrome... hmm...
Switch from Google? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Choices (Score:3, Interesting)
Choices, choices.... Do I hand over the care for my personal privacy to Beelzebub or Ba'al?
My tip would be to take some personal responsibility for what you tell others about yourself.
Re:Google (Score:5, Interesting)
A point the article makes is that Microsoft, as a corporation that has dealt heavily with many things outside of just search, is very much grounded in privacy concerns and legal matters related to it. They are likely to uphold their privacy policy very strictly on their internet services.
Idea for a Firefox plugin - GoogleFreeTornet (Score:1, Interesting)
Basically, everyone that downloads the extension would become part of a distributed network. This network would then handle Google queries semi-anonymously. Like Freenet, queries could be passed around within a few nodes, so you wouldn't know if the queries your copy of the plugin was working on were from the next node, or from a node several away. It'd slow things down a little bit, but since you're just passing around queries and results, and not the actual destination content, it wouldn't be too terrible.
Uh, what? (Score:2, Interesting)
I would trust Google more with an AUP that says "We will steal your children and sell them to the Martians" than I do Microsoft with any AUP, privacy policy, et cetera. Remember, Microsoft the company has been convicted of various crimes on repeated occasions. Many people say you can't treat a company as a single entity, but they demand that we do right up until the company is convicted of wrongdoing... I think it's only fair to apply the same standard at all times. It's long past time to invoke the corporate death penalty against Microsoft.
Re:Google (Score:3, Interesting)
Given how absurdly permissive their stated privacy policies usually are, they had damn well better hold to it.
I mean, it's a company. If they want to claim that there's some sort of legally binding contract that shows up just because I viewed their website, at the bare minimum they ought to be fulfilling their obligations. Does that mean they will? In many cases no, but those sites are guilty of a breach of contract, by a contract they unilaterally imposed.
Re:Lame suggestion (Score:2, Interesting)
What Google is doing isn't so much of a concern as what they might do in the future. Their CEO clearly considers anything that I send to them to be public information. I'm not sure I agree with this policy.
Re:Google (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually applaud Firefox for this change. Marketing companies shouldn't just fuck everyone in the ass for their own gain.
I guess for the general public this type of statement makes sense. Most people probably have no fucking clue what Google stores about you and what they plan to store (e.g. Chrome has your browser history travel with you as well as extensions which means they have all that data on you on their servers too). But for the rest of us who know that they are doing this and really don't give a shit but really enjoy the phenomenal search results returned (simply stated: Bing blows goats compared to Google), it's fine.
I thank Mozilla for trying to sway me one way or the other but honestly, I can make up my own mind TYVM--and I'm a privacy freak. Clear your cookies and don't login to get customized search results if you're really that concerned.
problems with bing (Score:3, Interesting)
i'd be glad to make a switch, but there are some problems i have with bing:
Somehow looking at bing gives me the same feeling as looking at a typical domain-squatting site.
Why can't they just get it right?
Re:Privacy fears (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Google (Score:3, Interesting)
And here we see Google falling because they think they're "too big" and "dont-be-evil" to take their users privacy seriously...
I actually applaud Firefox for this change. Marketing companies shouldn't just fuck everyone in the ass for their own gain.
Google certainly doesn't have a great track record for privacy, but is MS any better?
I'm all for discussion and criticism of Schmidt's statement, but I'm not sure I want to punish a company because their CEO was actually honest about their beliefs.
Bing (Score:1, Interesting)
ixquick? (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.ixquick.com/
Self-billed as "the world's most private search engine"...
Image is nothing (Score:2, Interesting)
Stop "thinking" with company images. Look to what they actually do. Please stop this "they aren't evil" BS. Enough really... We got a information monopoly in hand who tries to get every bit of your personal information if you aren't careful.
Re:Clusty (Score:1, Interesting)
Not only the best, it also fails at/lacks basic math:
http://clusty.com/search?query=1*1
vs
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=1*1
Re:$1,000,000 anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Respecting Your Privacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Well Google has a track record of mining every bit of data about you. Even to the point of hiring contractors to take pictures of your house (from the "street" of course). They have a phone OS, and they are pushing cloud services.
Microsoft has a track record of being the last one to enter a market, and doing a mediocre job within that market.
So the question becomes "Do you want your privacy invaded by a company who's developed the technology and are really good at it, or by a company which is not so good at it?"
Re:Clusty (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Respecting Your Privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
When I saw that "funny" mockup of Google and the phrase "where are my fucking keys" - and google returns "on the fridge, where you left them dipshit" - I honestly thought this is where it is headed.
Google has made no secret of wanting to control the entire Internet experience for a user from content down to how you access that content. They have both sides of the market cornered, from a user and a webmaster's perspective.
They control most of the advertising, and they control (directly through analytics, or indirectly through adsense tracking) your website statistics. They know where a user goes to, and from, they know which sites. They know what you search for. If you've actually read the adsense terms, you'll know they tell you they use all the information they have on you to target advertisements...ON ANY SITE.
If you search for "buy a cadillac" and you then go to another website, if the cadillac ads are permitted to run on that site, it is likely you'll see them, or other ads Google has specifically targeted to you. It is no longer the job of the webmaster to do this.
I like Google, but the amount of information they have, if they DID decide to be evil, they would be the WORST company, because Microsoft holds absolutely nothing compared to what Google has on you.
Re:Image is nothing (Score:1, Interesting)
A company that deals in information and information indexing spends its resources gathering information. OMG! EVIL!
Do you stage regular phone book burnings in your neighborhood, too? Is your county's public records office a den of Satan, as well?
Google is officially a big company now (Score:4, Interesting)
Then Bill Gates contributed $40bn to the world in history's single biggest act of charity, Microsoft's domination looked for a while like it really was slipping, and Google simply became too big.
Google has simply become everybody's competitor.
Example: the Chrome browser competes directly with Mozilla's Firefox. Not that this was the reason for that blog post, of course
Another example: Google is so big that its people don't talk to each other, to the extent that they are building two incompatible operating systems (Android and Chrome OS).
Another example: the publishing industry has set its sights on Google, for the crime of taking away too much of their Ad revenue. They are contemplating de-indexing Google.
So Microsoft, once the "evil empire", is now champion of Liberty. Well, that is good; because they never were that evil, so some redress is in order.
And Bill Gates did contribute $40bn to the world. When Sergei Brin, Larry page and Eric Schmidt do the same with their personal fortunes, we can all go back to normal.
Bottom line: businesses are for-profit affairs. The best restraint on them is competition. We the people should keep Microsoft and Google both on their toes, for our own best interest.
And we should remember that people like Gates, Brin, Schmidt & Page are good good people at heart. They are creative. They contribute. Just like everyone, we need to set them straight from time to time.
That really bugs me. (Score:3, Interesting)
'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
One of the stupidest arguments that is made all the time.
"Hey if you got nuthin' to hide you won't mind if we violate your rights!"
I would love to see a privacy war, competition at its finest...
Bing might just get a new user today.
Re:Google (Score:5, Interesting)
Two things to consider:
1 - When Bush stated publicly that the federal government should have all search data tied to IP addresses, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft handed it over without any official government mandate or court order. They just volunteered your private information. Google refused.
2 - At the same time several of these issues were coming to a head at once (Bush's statement, Yahoo turning in a Chinese blogger, Google being forced by Brazil to give out details on a child pornography ring on Orkut) Google announced they were changing their policies and anonymizing logs sooner to protect people's privacy. They said their new anonymization policy was better than anyone else out there. I haven't read them all, so I can't say for certain.
So one company has shown they will fight to protect your privacy until they are absolutely forced (Google didn't even hand information over to Brazil when a judge ordered them to do so initially), and they anonymize their logs sooner.
So why in the world is Bing better for privacy?
Re:Privacy fears (Score:3, Interesting)
Generally speaking, I have far less reason to fear Google than Microsoft. Microsoft has repeatedly broken the law for its own end. As far as I know, Google has no record of similar transgressions.
I hate how everyone politicizes everything, but honestly, Schmidt is right. I don't google for how to make bombs, so I don't worry about someone thinking I'm some kind of nutjob.
Re:Privacy fears (Score:3, Interesting)
Heh...you're very right about this. I don't know if you've ever heard of PostSecret, an art project where people send in postcards of their deepest, darkest secrets to be published. Well, while this is fairly anonymous, there is also a PostSecret Facebook site. So, I jumped on their one time and every freaken teenager from here to Timbuktu was posting secrets up on the message board. These secrets were attached to their name. There one a few that particularly scared me, and some I couldn't decide whether or not the person was just trying to get attention or if what they were typing was true.
The concern for privacy is definitely waning in younger generations.
what about ixquick and scroogle? (Score:1, Interesting)
If they have concerns about privacy, why not switch to ixquick or scroogle?
https://www.us.ixquick.com/eng [ixquick.com]
https://ssl.scroogle.org/ [scroogle.org]
Re:Google (Score:4, Interesting)
Companies like Google may be legally required to retain logging data. It may not be by their own choice alone that they do it.
But I'm also sure the company will also try to squeeze any advantage they can get out of the data for themselves. In this regard, I find Schmidt's apparent lack of respect for users' privacy rather concerning. It may be that everyone knows governments will have access to the data, and that in that sense you perhaps shouldn't do (without some kind of external anonymization) what you don't want them to know, but Schmidt's statement also suggests that Google itself will be willing to do just about anything they can with your data (within the boundaries of law), and particularly that he thinks it's normal and acceptable for everybody else as well to gather all the data about you that they want and retain it for any purposes they see fit.
Google of course uses the data also to its users' benefit to some extent (improving search results), but certainly not all companies in all fields do. Think about insurance companies, for instance, where the benefit of the company and the customer are much more clearly at odds with each other (the optimal point where the customer pays the most and receives the least is pretty much just probability and statistics, and the companies use all available information to determine that optimal setting). Will Google eventually come to cooperate with them? "Oh, but you searched for this and that... it puts you in a risk group for foobar, so we can't give you anything."
Yes, I know that kind of thing is probably illegal. However, laws do change and when the data is out there and there's clearly the willingness to use it for anything (and the companies don't seem to need to worry that customers will leave them because of it), it almost becomes a matter of lobbying. And that's just an example -- the dynamics with that kind of a mineable mass of data are something that we can't even predict in the long run. We don't know who's going to want to use it and for what.
That makers the lack of respect for privacy more disturbing than stating the fact that the government is likely to get their hands on data if they want to.
Re:Privacy fears (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, but that stops collaboration in the cloud dead, doesn't it? You want privacy for more than protecting yourself against law enforcement or looking good in the eyes of potential employers. You want privacy for protecting your work-in-progress from competitors. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Okay, then, that means no product development discussion on Wave. Whatever.
Is it possibly fraud? (Score:5, Interesting)
Google has said it will stop paying that money, eventually. Or maybe Microsoft has offered more. Any statements from anyone at Mozilla about search engines must be considered to be possibly about money.
Eric Schmidt's choice of words showed an amazing lack of social awareness. However, remember that he also has a point. The U.S. government has decided it can force executives to give information, and can also force them to keep silent about giving that information. The U.S. government calling the law the "Patriot Act" was an attempt to intimidate by implying that someone who is against the complete loss of privacy in the U.S. is not a patriot. That's not correct, of course.
Maybe the underlying point of Mr. Schmidt's statement was that the U.S. government has been forcing Google to help conduct surveillance, and he feels uncomfortable about that. However, it was a foolish choice of words.
Re:Choices (Score:3, Interesting)
Choices, choices.... Do I hand over the care for my personal privacy to Beelzebub or Ba'al?
My tip would be to take some personal responsibility for what you tell others about yourself.
This is good advice. But many people don't know who is figuratively in the room when things are 'said' that ought to remain private. It's sometimes not obvious that the devious but perfectly legal thing you're doing is being logged. What's worse, your friends might be the ones who spill the private beans.
If you would ask your average Facebook user about who can and can't see/find the horribly embarrassing picture of them wearing a pixie outfit, submerged in a bathtub, drinking from a gallon-pitcher of Oat Soda, you might be met with either a blank stare or the erroneous "only my friends". Or you might get "er, what picture? I didn't upload that. Let me see... Oh, I am so going to kick John's ass for uploading that..."
Anyway, the bit about personal responsibility is supremely important, but poorly designed, confusing technology and dim-witted friends are also problems with dealing with online privacy.
Re:Privacy fears (Score:1, Interesting)
(Posting as AC because I *do* care about my privacy).
Where do you draw the line?
Let me give you a non-hypothetical example. I have bipolar disorder with mild psychotic features, which is well-controlled with medication and therapy. Although I have shared this information with my current employer, that doesn't mean that I want it shared with anyone else. It's between myself, my health care providers and insurer, and anyone else whom I explicitly share the information with.
It's none of your fucking business. In neither of the two hypothetical situations you cited is it your business either. In the first case, deliberately or negligently infecting anyone with a deadly disease is already adequately covered by existing law. In the second case, it's between the person and their partner(s).
Mozilla versus Chrome (Score:3, Interesting)
No doubt the privacy concerns are real, although I honestly don't know how bad MS will get with data mining. I suspect this statement from Mozilla was motivated by Google becoming a viable competitor in the browser market. Making this statement certainly attempts to sow the seeds of doubt about Google invading your privacy.
Re:Choices (Score:3, Interesting)