Google Blacklists CNet Reporters 377
An anonymous reader writes "Cnet News.com is reporting that Google is no longer talking to Cnet reporters. In an article about the search company looking for new executive chefs, the article states: 'Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News.com reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues raised by a previous story.' Apparently, Google was angered by an article published earlier by Cnet where all sorts of personal information about Google CEO Eric Schmidt was included. The information was obtained from Google searches."
I'm not feeling sorry (Score:5, Insightful)
You put it on the Internet and its fair game.
Of course, there is a lot of our information on the Internet that we didn't put there, which is why we need better laws regarding dissemination of personal information.
The moral juggling act goes on (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Live by the Search, die by the Search (Score:2, Insightful)
It gives me the creepy vibe of a tabloid mag..
Just feels immature that thay would do that...
How is this "censorship"? (Score:5, Insightful)
The government telling you you're not allowed to say certain things, under penalty of law: censorship.
A company deciding it's not going to do business with another (in this case, a press) company: not censorship.
I can only agree. (Score:2, Insightful)
There is private information, and there is public information - and everything that has been ever published is public, no matter how personal it may seem.
You can't unspill water, and you should have no expection of everyone else hiding what already is public - Cnet cannot be faulted at all.
Hey Google - what about your 'do no evil' ? Don't become so hypocritical - it won't benefit you.
The Beginning of The End? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not Google's fault information is available (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you can use Google to track down a distressing amount of personal information about some people, but this is a function of the information being made available by third parties. Google just makes it easier to find all these sources quickly.
People that gripe about (or sue) Google based on their indexing "bad" things, need to step back and think of the Web as more of a library, with each page as a book. Google serves as a card catalog, helping you find the books that have the information you are interested in. If somebody goes to the library and looks up a bunch of personal information on you (which is possible, just slower) you don't get mad at the makers of the card catalog. Your anger should be directed first at the person who singled you out. Next, if the books contain something which shouldn't be public (unlike major stock sales, and other things from the article, which should be public) you ought to take it up with the author/publisher of the books.
cNet took a cheap shot at Google, and did it in a fairly childish way. The point they were trying to make is both obvious, and better made in a more mature fashion. That being said, I don't exactly think Google's response is "mature", but if they want to respond in kind, I don't blame them.
Re:The Beginning of The End? (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether it's justified or not is another matter, but I think you're blowing the issue a bit out of proportion if you proclaim that this is the end of them being (or trying to be) the "good" guys.
Re:How is this "censorship"? (Score:3, Insightful)
And fair enough too (Score:3, Insightful)
There are a great number of things one can do, that are not necessarily what one should do. There are even many both easy and legal things one can do that are ethically reprehensible.
I see no hypocrisy in Google's actions. Why deal with a group of people who have demonstrated they have no scruples?
Re:Live by the Search, die by the Search (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why journos have codes of conduct. Because it may not be illegal and it may not be that hard to do, but it can still be wrong.
J.
Not reasonable (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't agree there. There's public, obscure information that wouldn't occur to anyone to search for, and then there's nicely packaged, published information. Prior to publication, few people knew, and after, many did.
Yes it's security through obscurity - but since it's absolutely impossible to get actual identity security, that's all we have these days.
Also note that the slashdot crowd went nuts when O'Gara did this to Pamela Jones.
Also, Google's not suing - they're punishing cNet for playing dirty. If CNet expected a different response from the article, they're retarded. If they don't want to talk to someone since they did something that wasn't nice, that's their right.
Re:Live by the Search, die by the Search (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No Obligation To Talk With Press (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe with one notable exeption: governments. If governments would start to favor certain newspapers and blacklisting others, it would be highly inappropriate.
Read the linked article, and... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I guess Google is really being the asshole here.
The thing that the article is pointing out -- rightly -- is that Google appears to be on the road toward becoming a major information clearinghouse. And the information is, rather than most similar things, information about everything. They have manifested a desire to aggregate this knowledge and use it in certain ways (i.e., targeted ads by reading the content of your email), and for now they are behaving as a 'good netizen'.
The thing is, as soon as these two idealistic PhD guys get fed up and cash in and decide to buy an island in the South Pacific and go live there, I fear that so will go Google's ethos of being the good guy, and the marketing weasels and fucking lawyers schmucks will pervert Google amazing technology to do some Seriously Evil Shit (tm).
It's really just a matter of time...
Re:I can only agree. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm not feeling sorry (Score:1, Insightful)
Like you name (which you make public)
Nathan Stine.
Your address,
121 N. Maple Ave.
Cincinnati Ohio
Your phone number
937-412-4282
Your birthday:
03/25/84
You attend Wright State University in Dayton but seeing as you are originally from Ohio it can be inferred that you have not traveled far from home in your meager 21 years.
You are still a college student and from a working class family. You are resentful at those who have money because they could afford a better secondary education, which you could not afford as you paying for your education largely by yourself via federal loans and grants.
You like to involve yourself in political discussion about world issues yet get all your facts from sources that are just as bias as the sources the right wing people you enjoy calling "idiotic" get their facts from.
You are a pseudo-intellectual and like to quote Voltaire.
See, all sorts of info is easily obtainable from web. And all this in just the pass 15 minutes. Imagine if I put a little effort into it.
www.fuckedgoogle.com already knew this (Score:2, Insightful)
seriously folks, most people on slashdot have such a congnitive dissonance going with regards to Google that there would be 500 posts defending Google if somehow the corporation itself were caught in bed with a dead, 14 year old hooker and a bag full of colombian flake.
just because Google isn't microsoft is no reason to automatically assume Google is some sort of deity.
in fact, why do you people have this innate longing to fall in love with ANY company? they sell TEXT ADS, PEOPLE. none of their other products has ever made a dime. those "geek" products are nothing more than the mafia boss giving large donations to the local little league team or fireman's retirement fund. it's called public relations.
Re:I can only agree. (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because some of this can be looked up in a phonebook doesn't mean CNN should be reporting on that part of it.
Re:Live by the Search, die by the Search (Score:3, Insightful)
The information has already been published on the WWW; this is how Google indexed it.
Re:The Beginning of The End? (Score:3, Insightful)
The other stockholders also depend on Google to "earn" them more by manipulating the press. Thus it would be a breach of Google's fiduciary responsibility to fail to do so.
Re:I can only agree. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're saying that you've never decided to break ties with someone because they did something you didn't like? That's almost the only reason you do break ties with someone. Why should Google continue to associate with them if they don't like them?
Re:I'm not feeling sorry (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm confused.
Re:RTA - It's good (Score:4, Insightful)
So not only do they plan on doing no evil in search, they also plan on doing no evil financially (i.e. maximizing current profit over long term). Certainly, it would NOT maximize shareholder value in the long run to 'do evil'.
The most successful companies in history have had similiar policies. For example, Wal-Mart has always advocated continually dropping prices, regardless of current profit maximization. In the long term, this maximizes profits by keeping their market penetration and fostering a culture of cost-cutting.
Re:No Obligation To Talk With Press (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is, Google is throwing a hissy-fit after someone demonstrated how their own service "invaded" their CEO's privacy. It's an excellent article, and an excellent example. Google is being completely asinine about it, which is very amusing.
Re:How is this "censorship"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that the government is slowly moving into irrelevance and that the coprs are fast becoming like local kings and dukes, the actions they make become less and less like those of private individuals and more and more like those of governments (and I am including monarchy and fascism as types of government).
So, it's not a big stretch to call "censorship" what some corps do with the information. This is particularly true of news media.
Re:Google should be proud (Score:1, Insightful)
And it's not as though Google is the only company asking Web surfers to make that leap, said Danny Sullivan editor of Search Engine Watch. "Overall, the issues with Google are not any different from the issues you have with Yahoo, Microsoft and others. They tend to get singled out, and unfairly, in my view," Sullivan said. "They're the biggest, and they make a big target for someone to take a swing at. It's not that the issues are not important. It's that they are applicable to the search industry" as a whole.
This is, I think, the crux of the article. The real worry is not that Google's "innovative" search engine somehow has the monopoly on invading people's private information -- Microsoft, Yahoo, et al. all have a vast amount of users' information. The real worry is that Google, along with having a lot of different services now that users are using in conjunction with one another, is just so damn popular. The fact of the matter is that it is Google's popularity that is causing users to flock to it, and as a result, more of the users' information is out there on Google. If Yahoo were as popular as Google, the CNet article would be about them, considering that Yahoo offers pretty much all the same services as Google.
Re:Pick and choose (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, I consider it a problem when large corporations use their power to control what the media writes.
Re:How is this "censorship"? (Score:2, Insightful)