Slashdot Mirror
Google's Software Principles
Nick writes "Google has just posted a new set of "Software Principles" at their site on how they feel about spyware and the like. It is interesting to see the company whose motto is "Do no evil" trying to get the rest of the internet world to follow, with proposed principles dealing with upfront installation, clear behavior, simple removal, and keeping good company. The question is, though - why would a company who makes spyware (whose very nature is to be secretive and hard to remove) want to follow Google's principles?"
To be successful?
Like on the Google Bar
Ain't no evil, just "advanced" features?
If it's Google, it has to be cool.
No thanks : I like to enjoy things by myself and Google is nowhere near Altavista's syntactic engine.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
That's what I love about the Google Deskbar should I ever decide to remove it. Making it disappear will be three clicks away.
There are some who believe that "Do no evil" includes something like 'place no ads' or 'scan not thy clients' email.'
Cause they'll be ranked in the lowest portion of the results if they...
A: make spyware.
B: incorporate spyware.
C: Piss off the main marketing funnel of the internet which is THE search engine.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
>>The question is though, why would a company who makes spyware (who's very nature is to be secretive and hard to remove) want to follow Google's principles?"
Because google can blacklist all their information off their site?
Power may corrupt, but absolute power is kinda cool.
The question is though, why would a company who makes spyware (who's very nature is to be secretive and hard to remove) want to follow Google's principles?
Duh, because they want to be as good as Google.
j/k
The IT section color scheme sucks.
...do their thing anyway.
Gathers much praise, but few friends.
It is never easy to walk the moral high ground.
But what do I know, I traded my morals for a shiny new bike when I was 6.
It's like ethical spammers. The ethical spammers are the ones who ask my permission before they send me spam. Preferably, this request for permission is in the form of a notice nailed to a tree somewhere to the west of Belo Horizonte in Brazil, where there is no chance I will ever see it. I already know what my answer is: No..
--
QDB.us
http://www.google-watch.org/
There are alot of dumb users out there that would install it anyways...
.. "OK!"
"Hi there, I'm Joe Spyware, I'm going to be showing you lots of helpful products while you try to browser the web!"
"who's moto..."
/. and no one proofreads anything. my post is a case in point... here i come "Submit" button. no "preview" for you this time!
at first i wondered why i said "moto" in my head, instead of "motto", then i realized this is
now i just realized they said "who's" as well. doesn't this mean, "who is moto..."?
-i'm trolling, i'm trolling!
-keep trolling bob.
Its good to see a company like google talking out against spyware.
Spyware is one of the worst things going on in the IT industry right now, and every effort made to ridden this world of it is good.
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
It really depends on what your idea of what spyware is. If you say, are beta testing a game (the new matrix for example), they will install software that will monitor your pc and report errors, pc information, and I would guess usage of the game etc. ISP's (like bellsouth) install spyware to help their customer service determin problems customers will have with their PC's. Im sure it does more then that though.
TruePunk | Games
Does Tony Soprano worry about ethics before he lays a whack?
Hey now, that's an unfair analogy. At least Tony Soprano and Vito Corleone had an honor code of sorts. Ya know, "If I do this for you you will repay me in the future" sort of thing. I don't think the spyware companies have ever been that nice. And you don't even get the option of signing something in their "offer you can't refuse" -- they just pull the trigger.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It's good to see that at the bottom they've pointed people to a number of spyware/adware removal tools.
Most ISPs daren't point their users at these in case it breaks said user's precious Kazaa.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
Results 1 - 7 of about 25 English pages for Niggerboyjones. (1.01 seconds)
This may be coming up because of Orkut's Terms of Service Conspiracy Theories that keep popping up (orkut is owned by google).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
If an application collects or transmits your personal information such as your address, you should know. We believe you should be asked explicitly for your permission in a manner that is obvious and clearly states what information will be collected or transmitted. For more detail, it should be easy to find a privacy policy that discloses how the information will be used and whether it will be shared with third parties.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls...
<grrr>
I'd guess a spyware company would love to not only adhere to the princicples, but even flaunt the fact. That is, until they change their policy and stop adhering to the principle.
Funny.. Nowhere in my google toolbar are the words "Advanced Features" showing up anywhere. And if I turn on the PageRank display, a popup warns me that that particular feature has privacy implications and even provides a link to explain them to me.
I think it's possibly the most non-spyware tool that I've ever seen integrate into IE.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Sure, Google is great and all, but why do they think they can move onto being a moral authority or a standard-setter? This is somewhat "imperialistic", if you know what I mean.
why would a company who makes spyware (who's very nature is to be secretive and hard to remove) want to follow Google's principles?
Free advertising baby! Screw ethics. Tomorrow's headline "Spyware agency agrees to Google's 'Good Guy' clause". Then can then follow that up in 2 weeks with "Spyware agency break Google's 'Good Guy' clause". And a few more weaks "Spyware agency makes amends with Google and their 'Good Guy Clause'".
A million free hits, zero effort.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
but isn't google doing a disservice to people that don't know about google?
millions of people would be greatful for their spam!
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
The fine folks at Spybot S&D have some choice words about Google.
While the spyware types may not particularly give a damn what Google says, a lot of people do. A lot of people look up to Google - a lot of programmers want to work there, and a lot of companies can easily see the success that Google has made for itself by having a good image and a good product.
Google is essentially offering free advice for companies. They're showing what worked for them. Often the CEO of a company will go out and look for information about how people have previously solved the solutions that said CEO is looking to solve in their business plan. It's a 'learn from mistakes and successes' ideal. Right now, spyware is fairly ubiquitous, so is it any surprise that companies start doing it more and more? Whether or not it works, it has a definite presence, and that presence brings it into mind as a company strategy.
Google is bringing their (superior, I think we can all agree) company strategy into view, and saying 'here's something better' for anybody who's willing to listen.
--
Mr Google Advocate
They are successful because they do what they do very well.
By plenty standards, Kazaa is successfull...
now, if only everyone would just follow these guidelines, everything would be great!
...at least for google
Thanks for that link to Google in the story. I would have never found it otherwise ;)
It is not surprising that they are going to put their best foot forward and try to "lead by example", prior to their IPO.
While admirable, their press release is nothing more than idealistic rhetoric which does nothing to actually help the situation at hand. Not in the short term at least.....
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
The question is though, why would a company who makes spyware (who's very nature is to be secretive and hard to remove) want to follow Google's principles?"
Because a search engine and an anti-spyware/virus software do VERY similar jobs.
Scan huge amounts of data for fingerprints and patterns.
And Google as a platform is looming pretty fast.
Bind0
They call it that during the install. But I agree, it's very clear about what it's doing, and give you a very easy way to disable it. Calling the google bar spyware is a stretch I think.
of competition, it's really difficult for a company to "do no evil" and succeed...
i think google will soon see that the way to riches is paved with unmaintainable ideals...
Unfortunately, nobody can tell you who the Moto is... You have to see it for yourself.
Red pill or Blue pill?
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Hey now, that's an unfair analogy. At least Tony Soprano and Vito Corleone had an honor code of sorts. Ya know, "If I do this for you you will repay me in the future" sort of thing.
It's generally understood that the favor is in the form of a Bonzi Buddy.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
When you install it, the toolbar gives you the option to install with or without "Advanced Features".
I'd certainly call the toolbar benign though. As you said, it tells you upfront what it's going to do when you enable the "Advanced Features".
The publication of these "principles" has nothing to do with getting other vendors to start behaving nicely, and everything to do with getting people ready for the impending launch of Google's desktop search app.
To make the leap from being a Web site to being software you have to install locally, there's a much higher burden of trust they have to surmount -- especially when that software will index your entire local filesystem (just think of the snooping possibilities!).
So, I see this as a kind of pre-emptive strike on their part -- a way that they can claim that they will be as "non-evil" on the desktop as they supposedly are on the Web, and have a document to back it up.
If any other companies follow the principles that document outlines, that's probably gravy, from their perspective.
Read my blog.
the difference is that you are agreeing to have the monitoring software installed on your machine. Where "spyware" is helplessly tacked on with little, or in some cases, no warning. My guess would be that this is stated in the EULA or Terms of Service and failure to agree would not allow you to install the software in any case.
Hmmm.
it's things like this that make me wonder why people were so up in arms about gmail's privacy. google has consistently, time and time again, tried to do good things like this and in general is interested in being a benevolent company. i think much if it might have to do with the original owners still commanding much of the company, but i just want to say that i hope google never changes it's stance on putting the user's experience above anything else.
- tristan
Noone else does.
/. but they fail a few of the points listed. As in, piggybacking software, phoning home, etc. And that's just with Media Player.
Microsoft, anyone? Sure, they're the easiest target on
I used to point the finger at Real, but they seem to have cleaned up their act a touch.
But really, who's going to follow these principles? Noone, that's who. Spyware has become a sad fact of life online. Maybe the solution doesn't lie in better software, but operating systems that actually offer the end-user some level of control over what software can/can't do on their system.
And please, don't try to tell me this functionality is already present using tools like personal firewalls. Their solution is more of a band-aid. The OS needs to do this, and needs to do it elegantly.
Google has got to be the most "virtuous" company in the online market today. I won't be surprised if they don't grow enormously, beyond expectations, just because their attitude of "doing it right" will resonate so strongly with Internet users. I think there's a lot to be said for appealing to customer's sense of propriety rather than merely his or her pocketbook.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There are probably going to be a million similar posts by the time I'm done writing this, but I'll give it a stab.
There are a lot of spyware apps that pretend to be something useful. Pop-up blockers, IE bar plugins, etc. Google directly competes with these.
By drawing a line in the sand, Google is making sure they are able to differentiate themselves in the eyes of the public. We all know that the fight against spyware is starting to heat up. By addressing this proactively they are more likely to be heard by the ears who matter. Slashdotters already know the diffrence between the Google bar and spyware, but not all users do. And as we all know, most of the people who draft/pass/enforce laws are clueless users.
It's almost 5 on the east coast, and we're just now getting our first Google story on /. for the day? The revenue from that Google Adsense ad in the Google stories for the day is going to be way down! Google.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
If you want to get this info from the source instead of waiting for /. to post it you can always just visit the Google Blog.
I think what Google is doing is citing the Good Citizen Rules specifically for those that can't figure it out for themselves.
Apple, are you reading this? Can you say "uninstall?"it's not that hard, people..
Like the lady who said "those old things over there are my husbands".
Mis-apostrophizing irks me.
1. Create 1G email that searches for add-placement opportunities.
>>Techie response: Cool, 1G and not as evil as hotmail and Yahoo in terms of ads.
>> Genewral Public response: OMG! They are reading my email. Must write to my senator.
2. Release Code of Conduct.
>>Techie response: Um, Ok. That's nice.
>> General Public Response: OMG! They are so good hearted!
It's generally understood that the favor is in the form of a Bonzi Buddy.
Yeah but will the Bonzi Buddy beat up thugs who assault your sister in return for free undertaking services? I think not.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
This reminds me of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
I wonder if Google is intentionally modelling their program on that one? Or if they intend to move in that direction?
--- Corporations Are A Fad.
Actually, on their most recent version they don't use this phrase anymore--my mistake. They must have changed this as a quick search will show that they used to call "Advanced" those potentially privacy-infringing features such as PageRank.
one interesting thing to notice is that windows, though it is not spyware, does not follow these suggestions. many things are enabled on installation that are not requested or mentioned and it's not always clear what these things do or how to remove them.
-ninjaneer
It looks like a pretty good set of rules, ones quite similar to those presented by a number of regular /.ers when talking about dealing with spyware. One that particularly attracted my attention was this one:
I'm not sure about things like changing your home page, but it seems to me that it should be possible to impliment some of the other steps at the level of the windowing system without needing cooperation from the application. You could design it, for instance, so that you could right-click on any window's title bar and find out which program was responsible for that window. The idea undoubtedly needs some more thought so that programs couldn't hide their responsibility by calling another program to do their dirty work, but I'd guess that including some facility like this would be a lot easier than convincing spyware writers to admit their handywork.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
do no evil ain't gonna cut it nerdies...
is "Don't be evil", not "Do no evil." Try to get it right, idiot.
Google is telling spyware companies that Google will not partner with them.
Either you uphold these principles, or Google will ignore you. Sounds fair to me.
"Whose" is possessive, "who's" is a contraction of "who is." Check yourself.
Considering that Google is mostly a data mining
company, they're just tring to do what every corporation
out there does : give a hard time to the competition.
The guidelines that Google has provided here
may be better than a corny mission statement, or guidelines for writing software. These could very well be the groundwork for new laws that prevent spyware/spam. These are slightly reminiscent of Asimov's "Laws of Robotics". They're defining what society thinks software should be.
I use Debian for similar reasons, though all free software is good.
This is what capitalism and real competition are supposed to do. In a real competitive environment, ethical companies win. Companies who screw their customers are quickly replaced. Only government regulations can protect dishonest and inefficient companies from would be competitors.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
We shouldn't depend on the vendors to play nice. Viruses and spyware have shown us this. It is up to the OS publisher to dictate these processes to the vendors. Anyone who doesn't play according to those rules can't touch important system resources.
is this BBC article:3 2475.stm
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/37
10 things the Google ethics committee could discuss
It's reported that Google, whose motto is Do No Evil, has an ethics committee to debate its impact on the world - something that will doubtless grow as the company floats. So what sort of things might it discuss?
1. From being a stripped-down search engine, Google is now a major player in advertising. Its webmail system, Gmail, runs on inserting adverts into people's e-mails. "How far should this go?" asks Danny Sullivan, editor of Internet Search Engine Watch. "Is it ethical to put ads on absolutely everything they do, almost like a supermarket floor?"
2. How much personal data should it collect? The company is going to understand more and more about what people are doing online, says Sullivan. But does that mean our information is fair game?
3. How much permission should it seek when it wants to "mine" public data for new facts, asks Danny O'Brien, co-editor of technology newsletter NTK. "Say Google designed a system that could scan photographs online, and tell you where they'd been taken. Would it be OK to collect all the snapshots uploaded on the net and index them, even when people could find out where you lived from your photo album? Is it OK to use public information to uncover facts that might have been private?"
4. How much should the company intervene in search results? The "ethics committee", which the company says is an informal discussion between interested managers and staff, debates changes to the algorithms which order search results. Spammers who try to skew the results are one target of adjustments, according to software engineer Eran Gabber. But any alteration will change the way people see the web, so should they be undertaken lightly?
5. Does it have a role in taste and decency? Sullivan says the company will remove search results for legal considerations - but what about other cases? What about links that showed, for instance, video of American Nick Berg being beheaded?
6. As a big company, Google has business relationships with lots of other companies - it's no longer a matter of just doing search. And business is business, so what if the company wanted to introduce "favoured status" within its results?
7. Google has become something of a standard bearer for ethics - who, for instance, would know if Yahoo had a similar committee, asks Sullivan. So should Google even be bothered about ethics now, or was that something for when it was a small affair?
8. For many people , Google is the internet. They use it as the front end and trust it to give them what they need - the Google deskbar makes this even more apparent. Does Google have any feeling for how it filters the net, do many of its users even know that they get a filtered view of cyberspace or how much filtering is going on?
9. Google is not a monopoly; there's plenty of competition. But should it strive to become one? What effect might that have?
10. Do they feel lucky? Sitting on billions of dollars, what is the best way to share their luck?
That's an operating system issue. With a proper design at the OS level, every application is equally easy to remove.
Why don't we face the fact that until we make spyware and malware and adware and ???ware unprofitable, there will always be somebody ready and willing to profit from it?
</i>
This isn't as easy as it sounds - you have to be able to trace who the spy/mal/adware sells to. And then who they sell to. And so on. Following the trail so that you NEVER patronize these is pretty tough.
Plus you have to essentially prove a lot of marketing theory that says any viewing (ie if you see it but don't buy it) is good viewing.
"Of all days, the day on which one has not laughed is the most surely the one wasted." -Sebastian Roch Nicol
no, the google toolbar was the result of some google employee's pet project...not Alexa
I'd download it in a second. I'd even buy the beta invitation on eBay like I did for Gmail.
Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
It's hard to disagree with these principles -- they make a lot of sense from a user's perspective.
How can this declaration be effective?
For one thing, it's a big company setting the standard. I can see companies priding themselves on qualifying for the "Google Software Principles" and people refusing to buy software that doesn't qualify -- because a big company said so, it has a lot more weight (in the minds of many).
It also helps clear things up for the non-technical user who may or may not think of that kind of thing. I don't know, somebody may try to get a law passed that requires this or something like it. Writing some principles down is a way of highlighting some of the most important points to lawmakers and the like.
Who knows? But it's really hard to disagree with their initial motivation for putting this together:
And besides, what did it cost Google to put that little page together? An infinitesmal investment to show people they care ;-)
As an employee of a major (so called)"spyware" company, I guess I'm not the guy to change your minds on this site. But I've got to say, you seem to keep making the same error. Not all "Spyware" companies are as bad as each other. Slashdot likes to pretend we're all cowboys who should be "rounded up" and "run out of town" or "lynched".
Our company is pretty clear what we do, we trade our program for some customer info. No drive by installations, no obfuscated terms and conditions, no download and install of other programs.
I don't blame you guys for your attitude, it must suck to work tech support on some of the machines that are worst affected by the cowboys. But we're not all like that. Remember that. At its heart we're just trying to make a living by offerring our customers better advertising, like Google Adwords. We'd all like to see legislation to herd out the cowboys. You've got more to worry about privacy issues from other things, people just use our companies as a smokescreen.
It's a pretty open secret that your IP address is logged and shared among vast sectors of cyberspace, to piece together your browsing habits, porn proclivities, etc. Hell, the technology was probably set up by you guys. Compared with that, is our buying of your browsing habits so much worse? get some priorities.
Spyware has a caring face, and this voice is not heard enough on Slashdot. For more info, look at a previous post I made on this subject here. Thanks for reading.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
That would be one way Google could pressure other companies to follow suit. If you don't show up on Google, you don't show up anywhere!
Because they, unlike other Robin Hoods, speak with an English accent.
Is this, by any chance, playing off of Asimov's laws?
I think that with the coming of iRobot, we're going to see more things playing off of Asimov. This may just be Google attempting to create a set of "Google's laws for the behaviour of software"
On a vaguely related note:
In my city, I recently noticed that Asimov's laws for the conduct of robots were on plaques attached to a series of benches in front of the police station. I can't for the life of me figure out why those would be out in front of a police station.
one interesting thing to notice is that Linux, though it is not spyware, does not follow these suggestions. many things are enabled on installation that are not requested or mentioned and it's not always clear what these things do or how to remove them.
Thy shall not be a Saddam and try a google bomb
Striving to be common...
You can rip off most people once. However, you can do good business with someone forever. How many ex-Altavista users are out there?
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
The google toolbar updates automatically without asking permission of the user.
Notice the elegant use of language on the software principles page that avoids implying there is anything wrong with this.
"These guidelines are, by necessity, broad. Software creation and distribution are complex and the technology is continuously evolving. As a result, some useful applications may not comply entirely with these principles and some deceptive practices may not be addressed here."
Longhorn, anyone?
One reason that companies may wish to follow Google's guidelines may be to ride on the coattails of success. They could do so by declaring themselves and their products to be "Google Certified" in much the same way that movie theaters with the right sound equipment can declare themselves to be "THX Certified".
This presumes the continued (and increasing) success of Google and its internet presence, but if that's the case, then such a "certification" could do much for the marketing potential of an internet-related product.
Coffee is my drug of choice.
First, it's a little pure and simple shame. The more people who say that malware is evil, and the more prominent those people are, the harder it will be for companies to justify those practices.
Second, there's secondary shame. This can actually make a more direct difference. Basically, how would you feel if you used malware (bundling, advertising, etc.) and everyone was talking about how evil it was. Maybe Google can get a few companies who use malware from other companies to reconsider how they treat their customers.
Or maybe it's just marketing, and Google wants the brand loyalty that comes along with being one of the Good Guys.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
In this cynical world, where everyone claims success comes only by bending the rules, or being 'wordly-wise", this is a company that has become successful by sheer ability, and the quality of its products and services. If, today, they say that it can be done their way, they've earned the right to say it.
*A dreamy-eyed idealist, who still believes in old-fashioned things like principles and ethics, and that you don't need to bend the rules to succeed*
Is a piece of software really spyware if the user knows its spying on them?? Google has always been up front with this and even gives the user the option to turn it off.
There are companies (maybe not the majority, but some) that have had their software labelled "spyware" that don't want to be spyware. Maybe a powerful Marketing or Sales VP demanded a feature, or maybe a business partner wanted to track some data with permission, and the implementation wasn't strict enough. Whatever the cause, there are companies who would like to see the term "spyware" defined so that they aren't subject to the whims of companies who are trying to make the "best spyware-removal tools", and can only do this by removing everything that has even a slight problem. I mean, it is now considered a crime to leave shared files installed after an uninstall of one product in a suite. Sheesh!
They are successfull because they are the best search tool out there, but there is more to being "Google" than just being a good search tool. If it was just a good search tool, there wouldn't be an artilce about thim on /. every day. They are not only good at search, but they have an approach to the Internet that has struck a chord with many on the one hand. On the flip side, they are so influential that minor changes to their algorithms can send some small businesses into a tail spin.
I struggled for days and days and all I got was this lousy sig.
No, for the last time, the Google toolbar was not made by Alexa!
I appreciate Google's attitude and ethics. It makes me proud of them and makes me want to continue to use their products. They are saying you can trust us. This builds loyality. And so far they have been true to their word.
Those shouldn't be guidelines. They should be legal requirements.
The cake is a pie
1) Be faster than Alta-Vista web search engine.
2) Be faster than MSN web search engine and piss off Bill Gates.
3) Look better each day for a fatter IPO.
4) Give e-mail users lots of space, so we can target advertisers at them and make more bucks.
5) Mess with the page-rankings so people have something to talk about.
At work the main workstation is infested with spyware. One of the programs has managed to hijack Googles search page. You go to Google, type in your querry, and a bogus page is returned, with Googles name on the top. That has to piss Google off.
I can't get rid of ita nd I didn't try too hard (its not my job and whoever set up the network is a moron, IEs default security setting is LOW and it resets at every reboot). Anyone seen this before and have any idea what it is? Can Google sue them for libal or Slander or somthing?
"2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
Google does search. Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat."
Yeah, Google doesn't do news, Google doesn't do e-mail, Google doesn't do social networks, Google doesn't do blogs, and Google certainly doesn't do price comparisons.
The more you know, the less you understand.
that, similarly to spybot and adaware, monitors what is being installed on a system and checks against known spyware/malicious titles. The masses tend to know more than any one person so allow feedback to be generated through the application to flag/tag those programs which contain known spyware. Similar to the hotmail spam system, let the masses flag the known and use this to warn users as to what they are installing might contain harmful or usless payload along with it.
-Those who know do not say, Those who say do not know
I agree with your point but that ain't going to happen until people will start paying for small pieces of software ... that they wouldn't install in the first place if they had to pay for it.
... not to mention you would never even need this unless you use Evolution in a corporate environment with Exchange Servers.
Just look at how everyone here wants everything they install on their computer to be free. How many times have I seen people complain about the fact you have to pay (well, until recently) for Ximian Connector!!! You had the whole Evolution for free and the Connector isn't even 100$
As long as people expect every single piece of software they download to be free, producers of these software will need to resort to other sources of incomes and often times, this means hijacking your computer or spying on you to the benefit of their clients : advertizers. Keep in mind that when you download and install something for free, you are a USER, not a CLIENT of the person who developed it.
Lots of non-high-tech markets have industry groups that regulate quality and standards, above and beyond (sometimes below) governmental standards. Sometimes this is just for marketing reasons (e.g. "Intel Inside" but other instances it has significant meaning to people who know what to look for (e.g. "not animal tested", "OSI approved").
Google could do the world another favor and let software groups put the "We follow Google's lead" seal on their internet software that lets users know, just from seeing the seal, that the software isn't evil.
um, it's about autocomplete:
"How do I stop my previous searches from appearing in the search box as I type new search terms?"
In 2000, Google's founders defined a set of principles for a quality search engine:
[W]e expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers...[W]e believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.
Today, about 95% of Google's $1B+ revenue comes from advertising, and Google's lawyers forgot to to check the "This will be an academic-only IPO" box on their SEC paperwork.
Four years from now, will Google's institutional shareholders feel bound by today's Software Principles?
But doesn't Google provide ads to its gmail customers based on the content present in the email? Isn't that an invasion of privacy? Practise what you preach? It isn't spyware but isn't it spying - Sure users know what they are dealing with or do they?
Atariboy
This may just seem like a geek thing, but who do you think that people go to when they want to know where is a good search site? Their computer-illiterate grandmother, or their geek uncle? That's part of what made google what it is, and it's good to know that they intend to keep up that protocol.
BTW: I consider spyware to be essentialy viral code with a veneer of legality. Most people consider anti-viral protocols to be a good thing.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Because if they don't I'm going to take a cluebat to their pointy little heads?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Mepis is one of the easiest Linux installs you will find. Imagine Knoppix with a GUI installer that works and you see Mepis. Install off the first CD takes 15 to 30 minutes depending on the speed of your CD and what games you play while it's going. It's got Windows network browsing, printing via cups and all that jazz.
Fedora will also work well, but the default is a Gnome desktop that's hungrier than KDE and the install takes a little longer.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Google does not want to be *percieved* as the Microsoft of the Internet, but they are already doing things to hype their IPO by trying establish an image of a "company destined for sucess."
It is inevitable that if they are sucessful, which is by no means guaranteed when you are competing with the Microsoft's Indian Empire, that people are going look back on the things Google does and find faults just like they did with the early Microsoft. Microsoft's behavior was actually very tame by the standards 1980s corporate America. Gates was the little guy then and he beat IBM through tactics now percieved as "conniving" in the post Worldcom/Enron era.
Anyway the fact is that Google is a software company with just as much potential for failure as for success. And their software principles might not matter. Apple had great principles too, but the IBM clones now dominate the market.
...to a new Google service: the Google Seal Of Approval(tm).
To earn it, your software must be submitted to Google and be found to comply with all the principles.
Then you get to put the logo on your box (or site).
Think of the goodwill someone would automatically have for your product by seeing a (meaningful) blessed-by-the-almighty-Google icon.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
If:
- Google has the philosophy that they would encourage websites NOT to use spyware (like $@#)(*-gain)
- Google has the philosophy that racism is bad
- etc etc
Who is going to stop them from not listing that kind of sites?
Privacy is terrorism.
This press release is simply further proof that the Google officers are not only interested in themselves, but in the community around them, the nation as a whole, and even the world.
Sure, they are a for-profit organization, but they are showing it is not a contradiction in terms to be both for-profit and civic-minded.
Even if I have completely misunderstood their intentions, it sure looks as if they care, and that might just influence a few other companies, (are you listening Microsoft?) to adjust their thinking, put consumers first, and hold themselves to a higher standard.
Why would a crooked contractor join the BBB? He wouldn't. Everyone else would. BBB members are good, non BBB members are likely not.
Don't do what Real would do*.
*"would have done?" Maybe they really changed.
Sailors. Oh man!
If the questions aren't even worth asking, then it is FUD. It is a sour grapes site by someone who had a lame website come up low in Google rankings. It is like William Shatner suing the "Chicago Sun Times" because their Roger Ebert said that the "Star Trek 5" film he directed was bad. That is all there is to it.
Why can't they make a simple HTML page that is standards compliant and not littered with mark-up errors? It's not like their search page is even remotely complex, either. I just can't understand why a company as big as Google, whose name is virtually synonymous with the web, can not be able or bothered to make a basic HTML page that is correct?
Google's principles aren't expected to change the behavior of the worst companies out there. They are designed to set the bar of what the best companies should behave like. If every company making legitimate software clearly stated what their software did and made it clear and easy to install or uninstall, the gulf between "good" software and "bad" software would be very large.
... if every email you send has detailed contact information (I include my full name, company name, phone number, and department as well as the name of our software in every email), it is very easy to distinguish from the majority of spam. We know spammers and spyware companies won't suddenly get ethical, but we can make the unethical nature more obvious by raising our standards for ourselves higher.
You could divide people and companies into one of four groups -- very ethical, moderately ethical, moderately unethical, and very unethical. Those who are very ethical do not need laws to tell them what is right or wrong. Those who are moderately ethical can usually make the right decision, but are more comfortable with laws that clearly delineate right and wrong. Those who are moderately unethical will routinely take the easy way or the most profitable way with little consideration of whether it is right or wrong, though strong laws with enforced punishments can dissuade them. Those who are very unethical are seldom concerned with right or wrong and often don't even connect their behavior with what is illegal.
What laws or principles do is widen the gap between what the ethical do and what the unethical do. The more difference between a piece of spyware and a piece of legitimate software, the easier it is to identify and avoid spyware. This is much like spam
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
well if they started to follow Google principles then they would stop being spyware. Kinda like what if God was one of us? then God would be God anymore duh! and if the rat bastards told me what they wanted me to do, i just might let them tracking my p0rn surfing habbits, or my morpheus downloads, etc. I know how hard it is to get good metric data, and that data could me either more jobs of less jobs next year, and if i can help some poor schumck keep his job then let world know i look at naked pictures of supermodels, hell i'll even admit i beat off to them too, my pride is not worth some guys family going hungry becaseu some bean counter didn;t get enough data. But if you lied to me or install something without my permission, screw you! all bets are off, let the bastards starve!
The people that make malware and spyware and the other crud that steals our time every day don't care about anything google has to say.
I think that a better aproach would be to target the companies who advertise on their networks. Sime kind of a "Google Aproved" icon would show that this company does not use pupups, spyware or whatever other neusances are out there. When I am about to make a purchase and I see a Versign button I pretty much know that I can trust the transaction. When I see a eTrust button the company went through the effort (and paid money) to at least provide me with their possition in regards to my privacy.
To try to convince semi legitimate companies to not make the same mistake that real made. Companies can be convinced.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Why would a spyware company want to follow the rules? Well, a lot of the early spyware companies started out as adware companies. Alas, people saw the potential to get a few more dollars by being unethical about uninstall policies and/or invading other people's software. Several companies, including Radiate, couldn't stand the heat that resulted and backed off from questionable uninstall policies, etc. But the idea was out there at that point, and smaller companies created for the sole purpose of building spyware followed in their footsteps.
If an atmosphere could be created in which spyware couldn't be pulled off, there might be a niche for real, above-board, opt-in adware again. Which might even be a good thing.
I once polled users evaluating one of my products to find out which they would prefer -- shareware with a timer, or adware that runs forever. They overwhelmingly preferred the adware option. I made plans to follow through on that, but the bottom dropped out of the adware market thanks to spyware and the negative message it sent about all "software with ads."
(There are a handful of adware success stories that don't include unethical policies as part of the business case, notably Opera.)
Check out the Apostrophe open-source CMS: http://www.apostrophenow.com/
Bah, see also http://google-watch-watch.org/
*waits for someone to register google-watch-watch-watch.org*
Surely these guys have seen the film and know how declations of principle usually turn out...
But it is still spyware.
It's a spyware tool that tracks your IP address, website visited, time day of visit, uses IP addresss and browser language to figure out your location and has a dodgy policy regarding collecting your name.
"Google does not collect any unique information about you (such as your name, email address, etc.) except when you specifically and knowingly provide such information"
The dodgy part is the absence of "to google.com" on the end of "knowingly provide such information."
As it stands you cannot sue them for collecting your name and address and telephone number from Amazon.com. You knowingly provided Amazon.com with such information and google's privacy policy for their spyware toolbar clearly allows them to collect that information from the webpage should they wish to.
If this was still a couple of geeks with lego servers, I'd say they just messed up the wording but the IE toolbar was developed long after google became a multi million dollar business. In the light of the money they pay salaried lawyers, their privacy policy stinks in its slackness in wording.
Google are rapidly on the path of being a monopoly on the targetted ads market - the search engine is a minor aspect of the adwords business that pays google.inc's wages. Those spouting the "do no evil - google are cool man!" mantra could well remember those that laughed at the tinfoil hat wearers who pointed out MS were on a rocky road to hell pre 3.1 Windows.
But this is how activist groups work. Follow the money trail; it's not private information. I'm sure that whomever does this will be very popular (at least with a lot of ppl I know).
why would a company who makes spyware (whose very nature is to be secretive and hard to remove) want to follow Google's principles?"
It won't help at all. This is all part of Google's push to appear as cool as possible before the IPO.
I believe Google, as a business entity, is as serious about getting rid of spyware as GWB is about world peace or going to Mars.
Corrected: "Google isn't successful...". Google is one company, not many.
Since when were principle nessisary to make million? Isn't this the same forum that incessantly rags on Micro$oft's (note the trendy dollar sign) unethical business tactics?
...Or at very least sometime significantly sooner than their 2.7 billion dollar double blind garage sale. Far be it from me to say so, but it's looking like Google has been taking lessons from the political spindoctors-- Saying stuff that sound all well and good, but is actually ineffectual and useless, aggervated by the fact that they haven't taken the moral high ground until now and are directing that message toward people who probably don't give a crap anyway. Tell me how much spammers are making by flooding your email with junk again?
What worries me most is this all of a sudden holiness that Google has found. Weren't they a business before they were an IPO? Where was all of this before they had to impress shareholders? Wouldn't a company who is claming the Anti-Evil high ground have been doing this from day one??????
Maybe if they'd started out as a small, righteous company it'd mean something. But as it stands, it's PR BS.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Why was this guy modded down? He so close to being correct it's scary. Google already collects aggregated data on every search made through them. There have already been privacy concerns regarding their email policies. how much do you think companies would pay for search data, however anonymous, of your HDD? Heck, this is no huge stretch at all.
Gotta pay for that gig of email somehow.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
The only interesting part of the article is:
I think that what they're trying to say is that if money is changing hands, they want a cut.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Q: "Why would a company who makes spyware (whose very nature is to be secretive and hard to remove) want to follow Google's principles?"
A: Of course the spyware company does not want to follow Google's principles. The question above is not really useful.
The solution is of course to write into law that spyware is forbidden and make the creators go to jail or have their businesses shut down. This is so simple. But oh - sorry - of course Y'all think that shrinkwrapped 'agreements' are "agreements" so they are protected. So stop whining.
Aha! So you're the one profiting from the spyware...
Seriously, broken software, spyware, never ending upgrades, bugs, bad design, etc. is what created a whole occupation... Add some unions to that and soon Microsoft will be mandated by law to add extra bugs to Windows and release at least one broken service pack a year.
/greger
why would a company who makes spyware (whose very nature is to be secretive and hard to remove) want to follow Google's principles?
Because people trust Google, and if the spyware in question keeps to these principles and includes reference to them at google.com then people will be more likely to install them.
'backdoor' and 'stealth' installers only work as long as the mass populace doesn't know about software such as SpyBot. Even the most clueless user these days may well have a friend or relative with enough clue to sort stuff out for them. I know all mine do! Remember how popups used to be everywhere until every decent browser came with a popup blocker built right in there. Only open and honest (I can't believe I just used that phrase) installers will be exempt from the 'get it off my system' panic induced in many people by shock reports of virus activity in the tabloids.
Doesn't google track EVERY search I do (via cookies) and doesn't the google toolbar report my browsing history back to them?
Personally, when I was reading it, I thought it was a precursor to Google releasing their own software for home users. The already have the Google toolbar, but this might be a sign of things to come. Wasn't there an article about using Google to search your hard drive a few days back? If you give Google access to something as personal as your entire hard drive, you want to be guarenteed they are the Good GuysTM
WTF! I just signed up on the Do Not Call list, and it won't be effective until May 21, 2009!
We, as consumers, should openly refuse to buy or install software that does not adhere to the Google Software Principles (GSP). To that end, Google should institute a GSP logo & licensing program. If it is later found that a company is violating the GSP by displaying the logo but not adhering to it, Google would have grounds to sue them. And perhaps such companies would get the message when we all refuse to buy/install their application because it doesn't display the GSP logo... Here's hoping!
If your small business depends solely on how many hits you get from google, you have a failed business model. Period.
Business shouldn't be about getting new customers. It should be about keeping customers loyal. If you are selling products that are one time purchases and you don't have word of mouth advertising and customer loyalty then yes, you might depend on google's output each and every day. If this is the case, it is your own fault and you need to rethink your business model. Maybe you should have never been in business to begin with.
It sickens me to see people bitching about how their small business might go out of business because of some insignificant thing like this. Adapt or lose. Period.
(the same can be said about all the damn conservatives who think government regulation of businesses could put them out of business because then they might have to comply with federal environmental guidelines... OMFG NOOOO!!!! It's the same old story over and over again... "but that would put me out of business!!! OMFG NOOOO!!!!" People with this attitude should seriously rethink their models.)
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
GJava GC++, GApples, GOranges, GDictionary, GCalculator, GEncyclopedia, GChat, GChatBotBuddy, GBitTorrent.
Bring it on.
Maybe software should not only come with a usage license (= user rights and responsibilities) but also the "ethical" guidelines it follows (= software rights and responsibilities), like these Google software principles. There may be different sets of guidelines for different uses, the same way there are different licenses.
One of those, then, could be a viral one, keeping with the GPL spirit: if you bundle your piece of software with one that follows the viral "ethical" guidelines, then you must also adopt them.
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
Google does data mining. It is most obviously visible in their search engine, but also applies equally to blogs, news, Word and PDF documents, email, catalogs, and social networking. They are in the business of cataloging, sorting, and hashing data.
True. but i think you misunderstand. Unethical yahoo does the same thing but yahoo doesn't tell you upfront in the public media they're going to mine your data. i don't do searches on yahoo anymore (and have switched to other search engines and google) because i get my email spammed and get my house mailbox spammed with ad literature based on what the contents are in the letters in my yahoo email. All of this done without them warning me.
i don't mind data mining as long as the company is honest with me and lets me decide if i want to give them my data which google is. Google has a set of ethical principles which they live by. You can't find that with a lot of the companies you deal with on the web.
* weedshare.com 50% to artists, webjay.org iuma.com CDBaby.com Epitonic.com ampcast.com
Not, their great principles against spyware.
I used to use metacrawler because it gave me what i wanted-- the most relevant data bundled in only a few links. i dumped them years ago. why? 'cause they started putting big large banner and pop up ads and i was afraid they'd start to put spyware on my computer, too.
i used to search thru yahoo until they started spamming my email and spamming my house mail box with ad mail after snooping in my yahoo email, all without telling me, unless you think their scummy "legalese--I agree" contract is telling you. i don't search yahoo anymore and won't be coming back.
for me, it's google and a list of a few other ethical search engines and search methods(arrowsearch isn't the best search engine but doesn't give you yucky spyware or popupads) all the way.
in both cases of metacrawler and yahoo, i changed my homepages in a heartbeat!! They lost a customer, actually more than one customer since I changed the search links on my family members' browsers, too:-) hehehe
when you're on the internet, great principles help!
* weedshare.com 50% to artists, webjay.org iuma.com CDBaby.com Epitonic.com ampcast.com
But 5 months after the IPO and the stock price is falling because well who needs a reason, search rankings will go on sale to boost revenue in hopes that will raise the stock price again.
Why doesn't Microsoft release security patches to prevent obvious security problems?
Because doing business that way costs money.
Reacting may cost more than proactive solutions, but without management buy-in on the front, you have no way of convincing the people with the money (management) to pay up for the 'extra' work.
Look at the airline industry in the United States of America. The airplane construction business opperates on the principle that ANo Safety Feature will be implemented until a disaster of cost equal to that of implementation happens. Fortunately, a lot of safety features come standard on modern aircraft - like a trained pilot.
People in the airline industry blame this in razor thin margins. The margins for Microsoft and many other major industry dominators are huge. Yet they follow the same 'dark path.' There is no excuse, but they continue to fail at doing the Right Thing.
Google has been doing the Right Thing for a lot of projects. And, now that they have posted their principles, we can see why.
When you have ideology that tells you to do the Right Thing, there is automatic buy-in by management. (Otherwise it is better to get new managment who will toe the line.)
"You cannot have a General Will unless you have shared experiences. You cannot be fair to people you don't know."
"Why doesn't Microsoft release security patches to prevent obvious security problems?"
Huh? Haven't you seen the endless strem of patches coming out of Redmond?
"Why doesn't their browser block popups?"
As of XP SP2, it will.
"Why does my computer warn me every time I try to install a legitimate (but unsigned) driver, yet won't warn me that my browser is about to be hijacked, redirected, and then corrupted to the point that a complete OS reinstall is neccessary?"
First of all, it *does* warn you when you are installing software in IE. Second, the software you are installing in IE *is* signed - otherwise IE will disallow the installation without even prompting you. Third, drivers *need* to be signed. Bad drivers can really screw up your XP system - to the point where the corrupt your data and screw your filesystem. Yes, XP warns you when you install drivers that they have not tested, but this is a good thing. Oh, and you can turn off the security warning for installing unsigned drivers (Choose System in the Control Panel). And you can disallow all ActiveX controls (Internet Options).
IE has security holes, but they aren't as bad as they are made out to be. Most of the exploits don't work on my system (XP SP1a with latest patches and default security config).
The basic UNIX permissions model is too weak to enforce this, but something based on NSA Secure Linux might work.
They are also getting free, positive publicity that makes people start to like them again after the GMail publicity disaster.
Stop the brainwash
Hey, its all about the competition for mindspace. The implication here is that their principal competitor is in the evil business. I guess all those court judgements may not be just a speed hump after all :-)Maybe having lots of cash to pay fines will not always save you.
google does no harm by suggesting a set of standards, and any "legitimate" groups will do their best to follow the principles.
they aren't the first group to do it, nor are will they be the last. for instance, if any of you are into anime, you may recall ann's ethical code for fansubbing. fansubbing is a copyright-infringing practice, namely subtitling and distributing japanese animated shows.
at the same time, however, many of these fansubbers claim that they're a positive force. this list outlined the "ideals" to which anime news network felt fansubbers should aspire to.
the result? no one followed it. why? because fansubbers find it either unnecessary at best, and repulsive at worst.
so why did anime news network write it? because, by writing out an ethical code, they are now able to take the self-created moral high-ground. the same thing is happening here: google is setting standards that no spyware manufacturer would want to meet.. as such google can proclaim superiority over them.
now, the question is: what will google do next? anime news network let the issue about fansubbers slide back into obscurity. will google do the same with spyware manufacturers? or will they press the issue and reveal spyware makers for the scum that they are?
I would say they are ethical and do what they do very well. Look @ten things they espouses .html
http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthing
And it is good Google is taking it. They are the most obvious example that you can make money without being evil, so many look to them for leadership. And rhetorics does matter in the world.
The only IPO connection I can see, is that formulating such policies openly will make it harder for the new shareholders to pressure google into evilness. I doubt such a statement help raise the IPO value, an IPO is not an election. Investors buy shares because they think they can make a profit, not out of ethical concerns.
1. Being add based, they have to accept them as ethical. The ethical limit they can put is that the adds must be clearly marked, the practical is that they must not scare too many of the users away.
2. Again, being a data retrieval company, they have to accept public information as being fully public. The ethical limit is keeping private data private.
3. See 2.
4. They should only intervene to keep the results maximally useful to the people who search, or when legally ordered to. Trsutworthyness of the search results is googles reason to exist.
5. No. Taste and decensy is subjective and local. Google must appear objective on a glob al scale. The most they can do is to try volunter filters like "safe search", and that is stretching it.
6. No. See answer 4.
7. I dont understand the premise for the question. Why should size mater on ethics?
8. Yes, no and no.
9. Google should strife to do the best job possible, but not strife to make the competition any worse. That is how capitalism works when it works.
10. No. By continue to do the best job they can.
Gee, ethics is easy.
n/t
If you don't like it, don't use Gmail. End of story. If you don't like the BBC but still watch TV, they'll tax you anyway. If you don't use Gmail, it costs you not a penny.
Again, the BBC doesn't understand that Google is a private enterprise in competition with other private enterprises. The BBC doesn't compete because it receives a GBP 2.5 Bn subsidy every year.
What about them? The BBC is very selective about what it does and doesn't report, and the spin it puts on it. Google just reflects the web.
What of it? Google is a business, if it doesn't make money it won't survive, if it alienates its end-users it won't survive. The BBC has no understanding of commercial viability.
Unlike the BBC, Google earned its money. Why should anyone else feel automatically entitled to it?
I would reply, but your little fire comment made me laugh till i couldnt breathe, I love it.