Slashdot Mirror

By me in response ro "Virgle", including a bit on the two worlds at Google: http://www.pdfernhout.net/a-ra...
----
"But given what Gatto and Ellul say, that action may be a long time coming because the wealthy get so much emotional reward out of believing the propaganda of elites deserving abundance amidst scarcity for the many and spreading that propaganda further (even via Virgle).
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.democraticundergrou...
"The cheap-labor conservative "minimalist government" social Darwinian world view is just plain bullshit. It builds a new class structure, which just like the ancient class structures, is based on a set of mythological concepts. In fact, those mythological concepts like "property rights", "contract rights", "corporations", "stocks", "bonds", and even "money" itself are socially created to regulate distribution and access to resources. The "market place" is a human creation. The details of how it operates are determined by the particulars of the institutions on which it is built. It is "instituted among men", and if its workings become destructive of the lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness of people subject to it, it may be "altered or abolished"."
For example, Google contractors get no Segways and massages?
http://www.google-watch.org/go...
Or second class badges?
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/...
"I used to work at Google as a Contractor. Let me tell you, it wasn't the greatest place for a contractor. First, you have red badges, so anyone with a Google badge looks down on you. Already you feel left out, and you don't feel like enjoying all the benefits Googler's have. ... I don't miss working there. The people arn't really all that friendly, people have arrogance and MBA, PHD attitudes."
And ultimately, aren't even the people in sweatshops in, say, China who build component used in Google servers in some sense Google contractors? Definitely no Segways or massages for them. :-(
http://www.monthlyreview.org/m...
"Well over 150 million migrant workers from rural areas have crowded into the cities over the past decade in search of economic survival. They may regularly not get paid for months at a time. Public healthcare across the economy is declining to the point where many millions of working families cannot afford to seek medical care or risk huge debt if they do. Migrant workers are at especial risk. Large numbers of workers in the toy industry have now lost their jobs directly as a result of the Mattel recall, and its fallout continues. They are the direct victims of their local bosses' abuses and the lack of safety control. But of course they and their stories and suffering, literally inscribed in the toys they make, remain invisible."
So what is Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California but a little temporary space habitat bubble of happiness for regular employees, but floating on a sea of relative misery for everyone else planetwide who supports it? Can't we as a society or Google/Virgle as an aspiration do better that that? And even within that bubble are emerging issues. How long can a company expect to run on twenty-somethings without kids?"
----

We've been watching "Manor House" and "Downton Abbey" and it is perhaps interesting to think about the upstairs/downstairs distinction in relation to Google employees vs. contractors and other supporters (including suppliers and users).

Personally, I feel Google (including its top management) i

You mean to say google DOESN'T have a shady past at this stage?

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

One last note, for the truly paranoid: how do you know scroogle isn't a front, run by google?

Well, Scroogle.org is owned by Daniel Brandt, the same person who runs http://www.google-watch.org/. If that's a front, then it's a freaking strange and un-self-serving front, and I would have to award Google the inaugural "Shoot Myself in the Foot Before Someone Else Does it for Me" prize ... :)

Google is EVIL. Period.

Google is no cooperating with the NSA. They are a fully-funded CIA company operation, with stock-price manipulation managed in a hideous outgrowth of the "plunge protection" team.

Look. George Herbert Walker Bush and his invisible masters are teh real, secret government in the USA. The former head of the secret police has been the Defense Secretary for the past 2 administrations.

The company captured the US. This became apparent as they engineered the killings of JFK, RFK and MLK - then ensured the downfall of Nixon - to be replaced by Ford, one of the lead stooges on the Warren Commission.

Google is the new name for Big Brother. This is the principal tool for social control and monitoring of the shadow-corporatist government, enforced through the "TLA's"

Use this shit, and it's like kissing your own prison floor.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/02/googles-reported-tie-up-with-nsa-raises-concern-/1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020304057.html?wpisrc=nl_tech

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/9612

http://groups.google.com/group/global-text-project-general-group/browse_thread/thread/d7256b9b18f0b0a7

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6130M120100204

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/CIA_creates_miniGoogle_0331.html

http://www.google-watch.org/jobad.html

http://911review.org/Alex/reference/google_and_CIA.html

Way to look up the wrong domain - it's scroogle.org.

Operated by Daniel Brandt of NameBase, Google Watch and Wikipedia Watch

And the privacy policy is simple enough - no cookies, no search term records and access logs deleted within 48hr. Of course, whether you trust them to respect that is another issue altogether.

Google and privacy. You might want to check out this, this, this, or this. People also forget that the majority of the world population is not living in the USA. US agencies are allowed to spy on non-US citizens as they like, although this is usually not emphasized for diplomatic reasons. Thus, not only terrorists and wrongdoers should be concerned about their privacy...unless Schmidt thinks that all non-US citizens are terrorists. Foreign governments should actually be much more concerned about Google than they seem to be, but as far as I know only former French president Chirac was concerned about Google and as a politician he turned out to be a wrongdoer, of course. LOL

You can make scroogle your search engine of choice although we all know that it helps less than some people might expect, because normally configured browsers leak a lot of information.

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome. So what's with Google's Chrome?

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can mine our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And they're going to come out with their own operating system?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit trying to syphon off my personal data in between crashes!

To be fair, the article says that Google shut down the ad when notified of it; and no other examples of linked malware are offered. Was this a one-time oversight?

Given the amount of business Google gets, how can you possibly consider one instance anything but an oversight?

But they have done it many times before. Here's a sampling:
http://revealingerrors.com/tags/google
http://www.google-watch.org/evilgoo.html
http://e-strategyblog.com/2008/10/michele-bachmanns-geo-targeted-google-attack-ad/

Why would anyone concerned about privacy use GMail at all???

When Google was nailed cold for driving past a No Tresspassing sign to take "Street View" photos of a family's private residence, Google responded in court by saying, "complete privacy does not exist".

Google's kow-towing to the Chinese gov't to help them censor Chinese dissidents are profusely documented.

Why would you want anything to do with such a heinous company?

Do you really think that Google Incorporated gives a rat's ass about your privacy? While Google's founding may have had some idealistic and good-hearted mindsets behind it, currently Google is just another for-profit corporation out to make as much money as possible. Your privacy matters only if it impacts the bottom line.

http://www.google-watch.org/

Check out this site to find out just how much google aims to know about you and how much informations they have on your in their permanent records.

An easy way to avoid this btw is by using the scroogle scraper to search google. You can also disable click tracking if you use firefox by getting a plug in called customizegoogle. Google it :)

There are plenty of people outside Redmond who still hate Google.

Some people are upset with the recent Google-Youtube-China situation. It's obviously not entirely Google's fault, but it's not a comfortable situation.

Lots of people think that Google has serious privacy problems. Not everyone thinks these are limited to its own data collection either--sometimes Google knows too much.

Some people think Google mis-manages its Adsense platform and hurts small publishers.

And lots of people are upset about PageRank -- from those who get a zero PR for no clear reason, to sites that get dropped, to anti-hate groups that dislike it when pro-hate groups get high rankings.

I don't know if any of those are GOOD reasons to hate Google, but plenty of people DO.

Singularity looks like testing the waters of an OSS kernel. This is (IMHO) a direct result of the pressure applied by PC vendors deciding to ship Ubuntu and friends. Microsoft sees the need for a move, and as you put it, the "concept car" is there to be scrutinized rather than realized.

It is in Microsoft's best interests to get the hell out of the kernel business. I don't understand why this isn't plainly clear to their executives. If they want to kill Linux, they should jump on board some other train ... probably a BSD. Sure, purposeful incompatibility would be in the mix, so it won't be so interchangeable with other BSD incarnations like OS X or FreeBSD, but it would solve many of their security issues right off. This would move Microsoft's OS team from competing with Red Hat and Ubuntu to competing with GTK+/Gnome and Qt/KDE, which is wise because the BSD and Linux kernels beat the pants off of the Windows kernel, whereas it's a far closer race in the desktop environment arena, and Microsoft has the office suite battle pretty much in the bag (so this line of logic would suggest an official Linux release for Office further down the line).

There is also pressure on the mobile front, with MS solutions looking like they will lose to Google's Andriod (Java), Nokia's Qtopia (C++/Qt), and FIC's OpenMoko (C/GTK+). C# isn't half bad, so if they start developing something along the lines of an Andriod/Qt/GTK+ killer that also fuels their desktop GUI, they stay in the game. Otherwise, their mainstay will fade into X-Box, Office, and perhaps Visual Studio.

Alternatively, they could use their obscene wealth to flat-out buy Google's biggest competitor... *shudder*

As a note ... I could never have imagined myself writing this two or more years ago. I was as anti-Microsoft as they come ... but my fear and hate for them is transitioning to Google (see http://www.google-watch.org/ and http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/ for reference). We'll see how a corporate mantra of "don't be evil" works for a company in the business of being evil.

Queue the Google Conspiracy theories...

Don't you mean NSA assets?

Who needs ECHELON anymore!

Meanwhile, the search giant is pushing open source in every way it can.

While remaining even more secretive and becoming even more of a monopoly than Microsoft on things that actually matter, like their search and advertising business, to say nothing of their total disregard for privacy.

Can you say 'divide and conquer'? Thought you could.

But don't take my word for it: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/01/199212&from=rss

That could be. But ask yourself this: if their goal was far more sinister than that, wouldn't being a search company be a great cover?

Well yes, they must obviously be a branch of the CIA/Haliburton! If not them, then the Illuminati/Freemason coalition must be responsible for Google's large market cap. Brilliant.

An ad hominem attack does not an argument make. It's not a "conspiracy theory" to question Google's links to the CIA, it's a fact.

Google logs a little over 50% of all searches in the US. And rising - another 1% in only the last three months.

For those people who use it, it decides what is newsworthy and what is not, acting as an overriding editor for many people as print declines. But it has more power than the television networks and movie studios used to; it's more like the telescreen in 1984 in that you are being watched at the same time, always.

It knows what you search. It knows what pages you like. It never forgets. Daniel Brandt articulates it better.

http://www.google-watch.org/

I don't yet have reason to hate google. But fear, certainly, just as any entity wielding a large enough cudgel should rightly be feared. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

"I'm pretty sure there is no prior art for Google bashing."

Here you go.

(Yeah, I'm bored too)

Does this sign you up for phone spam?

Of course not! Phone Spam is evil!

Google would never be evil.

Google. What a mystique! They can 'innovate' new forms of -

Cross-site scripting exploits:
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2007-01-01-n12 .html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=338

Exposure of personal and sensitive data:
http://www.finjan.com/Pressrelease.aspx?id=1261&Pr essLan=1230&lan=3

Data loss:
http://dream.sims.berkeley.edu/MT/vanhouse/archive s/000663.html
http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/google_featur es/google_email_troubles_continue.html

Site failure:
http://status.blogger.com/

Privacy violation:
http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html
http://www.google-watch.org/krane.html

Google. What a mystique! They can 'innovate' new forms of -

Cross-site scripting exploits:
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2007-01-01-n12 .html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=338

Exposure of personal and sensitive data:
http://www.finjan.com/Pressrelease.aspx?id=1261&Pr essLan=1230&lan=3

Data loss:
http://dream.sims.berkeley.edu/MT/vanhouse/archive s/000663.html
http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/google_featur es/google_email_troubles_continue.html

Site failure:
http://status.blogger.com/

Privacy violation:
http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html
http://www.google-watch.org/krane.html

Some companies just profit by people being on the web. Some big search companies who sell ads, and who really like Jimmy. These, or this, big company wants all info on the web, but they don't want people to get spooked, so they get Jimmy to host the data, and they spend their time selling ads, and giving Jimmy the kick backs.

By the way, free web hosting sounds different than "here's your personal wiki page, good luck maintaining it."

Anyway, that's just one way the could make a buck.

Here is a bunch of link i gathered about google and a dystopic future, they are a fun read ;-)

The future of google?
http://www.richardmartineau.net/museum/

Google and social control?
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/mg19125691 .800

Generic google watch:
http://www.google-watch.org/

And what if google had an OS, would it give you privacy?
http://www.osweekly.com/index.php?option=com_conte nt&Itemid=&task=view&id=2309

Am I the only one who finds it vaguely humorous that the same Daniel Brandt who wants to bust Google's balls has to use Google in his campaign to bust Wikipedia's balls?

This allegation had been raised by the anti-Google camp before.

http://www.google-watch.org/newsday.html

Now, THAT's damn interesting... and the article was written back in March 2003...

That, and who thinks they are fooling anyone by doing this? If you have a Google account for other services like Gmail, then you must allow Google to set a cookie, and you are still identifying yourself. You're also giving up the ability to customize your searches (safesearch, number of results, languages, etc).

With Opera 9 it's fairly simple to stop Google tracking you via cookies:

1. Browse to the Google domain you use most often
2. Bring up the context menu
3. Select 'Edit Site Preferences' then the 'Cookies' tab.

Displayed are the cookies Google currently has set for you at this domain. You have a number of choices at this point depending on your paranoia level, the most useful ones being:

• Delete the cookies listed and tick 'Never accept cookies' (this only applies to this domain). You can still keep some of your Google search preferences (e.g. results per page, etc.) by bookmarking preference options in a Google querystring.
• If you're only slightly paranoid then you may wish to have a bit of control over Google cookies without being overly inconvenienced. You see Opera lets you edit cookies - individual cookie names, values and expiry dates can be edited directly from within the GUI. Pick a cookie from the list and double-click or choose 'Edit', then set the expiry date to something a little less distant, say 2007-01-01.

Caveats
OK, so you're still browsing with your IP visible, but that's never been a 100% reliable way to track a person anyway, even with a static or long-lived IP. You'll need Google cookies to use Google services that require a Google Account so you probably can't realistically stop being tracked if you wish to continue using those services. Previous versions of Opera can do most of the above too but the procedure is different. Tin foil can chafe.

[blockquote]Enron was deliberately fraudulent. Google (to our knowledge) is not.[/blockquote]
I don't know, it depends on what you mean exactly by "deliberately fraudulent." I think you might be interested to read some of the information over at Google-Watch. Some of Google's policies have felt pretty deliberately fraudulent to me.

(Puts on tinfoil hat) In 1972, the CIA used Howard Hughes (at the time, one of the richest men in the world) to provide a plausible cover story for an attempt to recover a sunken Soviet submarine. Given the current administration's tendency to monitor it's citizen's activities, and Google's tendency to cooperate with totalitarian regimes, perhaps history is repeating itself...?

Mining data by itself isn't inherently evil; it's what you do with the data you've collected that's important (e.g. sell it to other companies).

I'll decide what's evil when your doing it with data about me. Here's some info about gmail. You are free to disagree with their uses as evil, but I'm not obligated to recognize your definition.

Is this what you're calling spyware, or something else I haven't heard about?

It phones home. Its spyware. Notifying me or not notifying me is not a defining trait, it just makes it worse if you don't.

Although, supporting the people who make them money is precisely the problem; they need to stop supporting some of the people who make them money.

You don't think offering a filtered Google search in China is a positive thing? Sure, it's not as good as unfiltered access, but nobody can legally offer that, so that's completely irrelevant.

Just don't go where you can't do it the right way. Oh, wait theres money there. You contradicted yourself.

On another note, what good is a search engine with filtered results doing for China? I seriously want to know what awesome goodness Google has brought to China that MSN or Yahoo can't other than the ability to use a different product. If more accurate search results is the only answer then that's sad. It subjective first off, and second - not really what the citizens of China need. Considering all Google is really doing is making the population of Chinaa available to people who wish to advertise to them, I wouldn't call that a positive thing.

It's much easier to switch a search engine or home page (I have mine set at google.no) than to merge from Windows to Linux. Let Google do enough evil and I'll make sure all my friends and the funny guys at work hear about it. They already know about gMail is creepy
http://www.google-watch.org/gmail.html

WOW this is old news. Everyone has known this for over a year now at least, probably even longer still. Typosquatting isn't all though, let's not forget all those annoying sites that have half a million keywords at the bottom of a page or the people who cheat using blogging to increase the pagerank of a site.

I think some of you may be interested to check out Google Watch.

So much for the folks at http://www.google-watch.org/gmail.html. They suggest folks never send mail to gmail.com, and provide boilerplate text to reply with in case someone at gmail.com mails them.

Well, now they might be sending mail directly to Google's servers without even knowing it! I find it highly amusing that these privacy advocates assume there's any privacy at all regarding the plaintext email they might send.

(I also find it amusing that among their privacy concerns, they also complain that gmail doesn't include the originating IP in the email headers. I guess consistency doesn't matter as long as they're railing against the great beast Google.)

There are other connections between Google and the Intelligence community. Like this job ad and this.

Got to go, the black helicopters are circling. Remember, trust no one.

There are other connections between Google and the Intelligence community. Like this job ad and this.

Got to go, the black helicopters are circling. Remember, trust no one.

Okay, so we all thought to some degree that the guy behind GoogleWatch was a nut. I suppose right now is when he can say: I TOLD YOU SO regarding the ability to compile search histories thanks to the never-expiring cookie.

Best,
Paul

You don't have to be logged in. When you visit any part of their site Gogle place a long life cookie ('til 2038 iirc), on your machine which is tied to everything you do.

So every search you do is tied to the ID in that cookie, when you log into Gmail then that cookie is also tied to your Gmail account.

If you log into your Gmail account from another computer then the cookie ID on that computer, and all the searches performed since the cookie was created, are also tied to your Gmail account.

Google won't let you use Gmail if you block the Google cookie either. Do you see where I'm going with this? :)

More info on the cookie from Google Watch

Posting provocative JE's on slashdot!

Sure to to get me & my friends list into at least 'tier-2' on these lists.

Google is their "Echelon for the Internet." Look into the background of Schmidt.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/06/03/google .privacy.reut/index.html
http://www.google-watch.org/jobad.html

Wow. So you're Danial Brandt? Mr Google-watch? I've always found you to be a rather facinating character.

Honestly - if you didn't have an axe to grind with Google, and then Wikipedia... would you have even bothered to do this?

'... Even the CEO shared an office at Google for several months after he arrived. ...'

What was the last time you read a CEO`s penned article for a Magazine?

'... Even the CEO shared an office at Google for several months after he arrived. ...'

What was the last time you read a CEO`s penned article for a Magazine?