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?"
That's what I love about the Google Deskbar should I ever decide to remove it. Making it disappear will be three clicks away.
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.
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.
--
QDB.us
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!"
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.
To be successful?
Let's be honest. It's not googles principles that made them successful. THey came along, took a week internet tool (the search) and did it better than anyone else. It's the fact that they did it better than everyone else and got the press for that which caused them to be the big name.
Not, their great principles against spyware.
Evolution or ID?
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.
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.
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...
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
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.
Maybe...
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.
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.
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?"Like the lady who said "those old things over there are my husbands".
Mis-apostrophizing irks me.
"It's not googles principles that made them successful"
No, but it has allowed them to stay successful and continue to grow.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
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.
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.
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.
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?
Not better : different : as I say further : Altavista Query syntax was much more powerful and advanced but this could slowen the search, hence Google success : why implement something that'll make the enngine a bit slower if only 1% of the users benefit from its extra features ?
Of course, because this is Slashdot, it is considered as flamebait...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
THey came along, took a week internet tool (the search) and did it better than anyone else. It's the fact that they did it better than everyone else and got the press for that which caused them to be the big name.
I don't know about you, but 40-60% of the reason I started using Google ~1999 is that I had gotten burned by other "web portals" with all of their popup ads, JavaScript malware, and other shit.
If you think this is something that only us Ivory-Tower geeks care about, you are incorrect. My parents recently threw away an entire computer because it was so ridden with spyware and popups.
Google's business is all about trust. If users think they can't depend on it - because the search results suck or because of popups - they can set their homepage elsewhere with a quickness and never come back. There is a reason that the first of Google's top three questions is about popups. Users get pissed off about it, and if they blame Google, it cuts into the bottom line.
Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
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
I dispute that. If Google had obnoxious pop-ups with every page of search results, big annoying blinking banner ads and pages that took months to load, I wouldn't use them so much, or have made it my home page.
Even if another site were to handily beat Google's search results, if they didn't have that same basic level of respect for the user, I would not use them. They made the web useable again.
Their principles are important.
It guides them when they make advertising decisions.
It guides them when they decide how to present search results.
It guides their privacy and security policies
So unless you define 'better than anyone else' as 'perfecting honest search results', I'd have to say their principles are very important. How can you be successful if you aren't honest?
GPL Deconstructed
Google is great and all, but why do they think they can move onto being a moral authority or a standard-setter?
That doesn't seem fair to say. If a company throws morality to the wind, we bash them and write OSS versions of whatever it is that they did. But now a company is actually doing something morally good and trying to help the world at large... should we bash them for that too?
<insert witty linux comment here>
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 ;-)
I think weak is a poor choice of words. There were many search engines, and they all had their advantages/disadvantages. Problem was, by and large they had all been beaten via meta-tags and other stuffing tricks. Google came out with in innovative idea, rank pages based on links to them rather than on the page itself, that took folks a while to beat. In the end, it was defeated by simple brute force (link farms). In the end, it will cost us because almost all the other options have been driven under short of Yahoo and Microsoft...
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
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.
And because we strongly believe these principles are good for the industry and users worldwide, we will encourage our current and prospective business partners to adopt them as well. They're not enforcing anything outside their company. Yet. As for trend-setter, what other web-based company has so much of the public's trust? Why not use their reputation for "power of good?"
Thy shall not be a Saddam and try a google bomb
Striving to be common...
Go look at the site and ask yourself if any of the stuff on there is problematic. Do you have a problem with website cookies? Do you have a problem with web site logs? Do you have a problem with government employees getting jobs outside of the government?
These are things that google-watch complains about. Basically, it sounds a lot like desperate attacks on a company that has never disappointed me and has earned its success.
Google-watch is FUD (and not even good FUD, at that). Yet someone always seems to post a link to it, as if to say, "Google's not so great now, huh?"
Google's toolbar application has an AutoFill feature that can collect your name, address, phone number, and even credit card info, to automate the process of filling them in to web forms. In order to use this functionality, you have to explicitly turn it on and then fill out the information in its configuration tab. The toolbar does not attempt to grab this information from manually-filled forms, nor does it transmit the information back to Google.
However, this _is_ an application which "collects or transmits my personal information". Since they're up front about how it is stored and protected, I'm perfectly OK with that. It may seem sleazy of them to say, but they're just making explicit the guidelines they already follow in their own software.
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.
I love Google as much as the next person, but to me the problem is not that there are any privacy concerns with Google today, but what about tomorrow, next week, or 10 years from now?
If you were offered the ability to store all your personal files on a central server operated by Google, for free, would you do it?
If you were offered the ability to store all your personal files on a central server operated by Microsoft, for free, would you do it?
Did you answer these two questions differently? I bet lots of people would because they trust Google, but not Microsoft. But why is that? Just because Google has been "not evil" in the past does not mean they will always be "not evil".
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
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.
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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.
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
It says a lot more than that. Google tracks and permanently logs your IP along with all the searches you have made. If you can't see the irony in a company that secrety logs your information speaking out against spyware then you need to google yourself up a good optometrist.
exactly,
When I found out about google, I was amazed at the lack of adds. I was using yahoo which was pretty good but what was better about google was the lack of adds! Text adds are great! I even use them.
Today's xp computer can become completly unusable within a month or 2 of internet surfing, and downloading by an average non-technical computer user because of all the spyware/addware/malware etc...
I think their past behaviour, coupled with the success that bevahiour has garnered, is sufficient reason (for me at least) to respect their moral authority.
Besides, Google is not "laying down the law", as it were. They are posting the standards that they expect from themselves and recommend to their partners. Nobody _has_ to do anything Google says, ever; if they screw up, people will stop using their services. People will follow Google's guidelines for two reasons: either they agree with the ethical and logical principles behind them, or they're trying to emulate Google's success.
For me, anything that gets more people and corporations to adhere to the principle of "Do no evil" is awesome, regardless of the source. Even if Google one day abandons these principles, they will have left an example of how not being evil can serve your business, that hopefully others will follow.
Punctuation: what is it? : Where did it come from? : This "high colonic" style :not better: different : as I say further: What the fuck ! ?
"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.
Perhaps, but you miss the point (I hope).
Anti-virus makers have been reluctant to enter the spy-ware arena for fear of getting sued by adware companies. If a big name (like Google) published a spec like this, perhaps it will give the anti-virus comanies a little amunition to take to court. They can now say "Our software block your spyware because you do not follow the industry standard for software installation." I do admit that it is not likely, but I can dream...
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
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?
Ok, I will bite.
I just read a great chunk of the google-watch site, and I came to this conclusion. I now know why we get better page hits on google lately than before.
5-6 months ago, no matter what you seemed to search for you would get porno, e-commerce spam sites. The kind that return things like "Search for bird poop on e-bay!"
Which was rather pointless. One pointed example was to search for "batteltech cartoon" to search for an old, unpopular battletech cartoon that was out in the 90's. You had to go 3 pages down before you could get a legit link, and not something like "eshoplink.com - search for battletech cartoon on e-bay!" bullcrap.
Now when you search for battletech cartoon, you get smart, concise, and easy to view hits.
Seems like google improved thier algorithm by getting rid of the people that attempt to abuse the search engine to get their links up. Googles entire purpose is to return valuable informatino, getting linked to a web site asking if you would like to look at "battltech hardcore porn" is not what I would deem as usefull information. This has the side effect of screwing over people that are putting up worthless information in an attempt to get page hits on google, which completely violates googles mission statement.
The fella on google watch seems totally against the fact that google is trying to provide a useful search capability that does not cater to people who abuse systems simply for fun and profit.
I am glad google-watch.org exists, it shows me how google is pro-actively trying to protect itself from becoming what yahoo was for many years. Pointless, and worthless.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
Sorry, wrong URL; but they do have a page specifically aimed at people who encounter popups and blame it on Google.
Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
It's not spying if it's 1) automated, and 2) aggregated, meaning that only code parses your email (as it already does for spam and virus control), and that it doesn't connect you to the ad directly, only the fact that an ad presented in response to keywords X, Y, and Z got a click-through.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
...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
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 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)
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.
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.)
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And before all the Linux zealots jump in and say "Use Linux"
:)
I use Linux as my main desktop, have for years..
I once made the misake of installing RealPlayer using Real's binary installer, which has to be run as root. And just like in Windows it messes file associations, so that *every* media type gets played by realplayer. It messes with mozilla's plugin and helper application settings so that every media and swf link gets opened in realplayer. It has the same 'cookies' and 'media partners' checkboxes (scroll down, they're below the deceptively uncheched first four options), asks for my email address during the install, I assume it phones home (via http) the same as in windows.In short, it's the same spyware-ridden crap no matter what you install it under.
There's nothing about Linux that inherently stops closed source apps from containing spyware. There IS something inherent about FOSS that stops it; a single pissed-off coder can fork the code and make a spyware-free version which is almost guaranteed to be more popular.
So the solution IMHO is to run FOSS apps wherever possible, even if Windows is still your OS-of-choice. I guess now we need an open-source equivalent of adaware or spybot
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
How can you be successful if you aren't honest?
Ask Ken Ley, Dick Cheney, Sam Walton, etc etc etc
Sorry, it's obligatory.
Let's be honest. It's not googles principles that made them successful. THey came along, took a week internet tool (the search) and did it better than anyone else. It's the fact that they did it better than everyone else and got the press for that which caused them to be the big name.
That's one way of looking at it. But take a look beyond the product, the search engine, at the way Google has profiled itself as a company. Basically what you get is a decent product, no crap, period. That in itself, especially in the world of computers, is rare indeed. No hidden catch, no EULA nonsense. And guess what, it works. Decent longterm thinking, good word-of-mouth advertising, and what's even more important, consumer confidence. I *trust* google not to mess with me or my computer. They're the *good guys* in an industry filled with evil. And to achieve that kind of reputation takes a lot of patience..People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
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.