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Can We Trust Google?
theodp writes "Google worries go mainstream this week in TIME's cover story, Can We Trust Google With Our Secrets? Touted as an 'inside look' at how success has changed Larry and Sergey's dream machine, the piece offers some interesting tidbits but in the end is pretty much a softball effort that even toes the mum's-the-word line on the relationship between Larry Page and 'blond, blue-eyed force of nature' Marissa Mayer. Guess it's the least Time Warner could do after pocketing $1B of Google's money."
Do Larry and Sergey always dress in #000000?
You cannot expect the people who hear your call and help to fulfill your request to not make a note of it, and possibly associate your request with your current IP address.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
never trust any company
Here's everything you can read. Unless you're a subscriber to TIME.
It's time to make some big decisions, so the Google guys are slipping on their white lab coats. After eight years in the spotlight running a company that Wall Street values at more than $100 billion, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are still just in their early 30s and, with the stubbornness of youth, perhaps, and the aura of invincibility, keep doing things their way. So the white coats go on when it's time to approve new products. For a few hours, teams of engineers will come forward with their best ideas, hoping to dazzle the most powerful men...
TIME Magazine subscribers, log in here to continue reading
Personally, if GMail, Google Search, Image Search, and Google Desktop are results of things done their way, I'll take more of it; I use all of those on a regular basis.
Honesty may be the best policy, but by process of elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
That is the real question.
After several stories written recently about companies having their customer databases compromised, can we really trust any company to keep our data secure?
I would say no.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
This article is stupid gossip with almost no content. I don't really care who's dating who. I expected an honest article Google's business dealings, not something lifted from Star Magazine about how Brad is mad at Angelina.
AccountKiller
Interesting topic, I predict much trolling on both sides.
It seems that lately the honeymoon effect of Google is wearing off. They've been around a bit, and while they offer great products, it's finally possible to voice concerns, valid or not.
e +rd,+columbus,+oh&daddr=Vine+St,+Cincinnati,+OH+45 219&ll=39.60992,-83.894348&spn=1.487494,2.576294
Personally, I like Google. If I have something that no one else (including Google) needs to see, I use this concept called ENCRYPTION.
Also, Google DOES occasionally make errors, and thankfully glaringly obvious ones:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=trabu
If you google Google you will see a list of critics, detractors and alternatives, after a few pages of Google top ranking itself. While there are some crackpots there is also some pretty interesting stuff; certainly worth the effort.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
First of all, I think the link to the article is misleading. Okay, I didn't read all ten pages but did it actually discuss whether or not we can trust Google with our secrets? Or did it actually talk about Google's current trend and their "Do no evil"-vision.
Secondly, why would you trust a third party with your secrets? "Hey John, I got this really secret business plan that must not under any circumstances fall in to the wrong hands. I'll use my web-based free e-mail address to mail it to the necessary people and not use our secure corporate network instead." "Yeah, good idea."
Stupid, I say. If it's a secret, keep it a secret.
looks like the short sellers are planning to make a fortune on google's slide. Live by the corpwhorate media bribe, die by the corpwhorate media bribe....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
The other worrying fact is they are so hugely resourced (and unlike m$ seem to get projects working reasonably well), woe and behold any small developers working on something that is in their "sites" so to speak! Monopolies are not a good thing...
Music, Games, Media Art and Programming
I was wondering if anyone else questions the value of Google as a publicly traded company. As a private company the company could afford to take more idealistic stands and just work through the backlash. Now that they are beholden to a bunch of fickle investors that over emphasize the bottom line. Does "Don't be evil" take a back seat to making profits?
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
Private centralized search engines are a threat to free speech if the world becomes too dependant on them. Its not such a big deal now, but I think we need to think about it as sites like Google become integrated into more and more applications, like Firefox.
-The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
Can We Trust Google With Our Secrets?
So far Google has been dealing with two different sets of data through its products:
1. Our (seemingly) anonymous search queeries, through Google search.
2. Our private documents, through Google desktop search.
What do you trust Google with?
So far, they have said no to the US government to keep your #1 private.
If you haven't opted in to #2, then so far you haven't even exposed yourself to the issue of trust with Google beyond 1.
People in China, of course, have a different form of trust relationship with Google for #1.
Those are 3 separate issues.
As a geek I love Wikipedia and how the net has given me information at my fingertips. A few sites have censored themselves, but the Google cache usually reveals this. Very gratifying. But now that Google has become so dominant, and is helping China to censor stuff from their citizens, do they really deserve our trust? Can we really trust ANY online media? If we don't have hardcopies, how can we guarantee that information isn't altered or wiped out for ever? In 1984, there is a whole ministry that works with throwing stuff into "the Memory Hole" that the regime doesn't like. Now it might be possible to do it with a press of a button.
A pretty nasty example of this comes from Time magazine itself:
The whole article I quoted from is here.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Giving 100% trust to a company that has a track record of kowtowing to oppressive governments... what can possibly go wrong?
...is no. YOU cannot trust anyone other than YOU with YOUR secrets. Why would we be concerned with whether or not we can trust a commercial organization such as Google with our secrets? If you use Google's tools, as I do, and love them, as I do, don't have an expectation of privacy even if it is stated. If you need privacy, have a separate computer or a separate boot instance on your computer (bootable ISO perhaps) and keep things compartmentalized. Google has some awesome tools for day to day computing and it's silly not to make use of them. The inclusion of your "secrets" is not a requirement nor is it wise.
No.
But why would we need to trust google anyway?
Google does it's job and does it well, but if you need secrecy, you shouldn't trust anybody that doesn't have a personal gain in keeping your secret safe.
If Google were to go bankrupt if it ever revealed my secrets, I'd trust them. But not any sooner.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Okay, so some blog has a conspiracy theory about how Google are censoring the press over who one of the founders dates, and suddenly Time magazine is "toeing the line"? Did you ever consider that maybe, just maybe Time magazine doesn't give a flying fuck who dates who? Seriously, so two Googlers are getting it on - does it really matter?
I'd also like to point out that Google or a rogue Google employee could alter the Adsense Javascript to steal your cookies, as the Adsense Javascript, like most third-party Javascript, executes within the security context of your domain. Everybody who uses Adsense trusts Google to a certain extent.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
The short answer to this question is: yes, for now
For now because right now the stock price is up high (even though its value is questionable). When Google's stock price is underperforming the market, or even losing, how easy do you think it will keep to the "do no evil" mantra.
The real question, do you want to trust a company which currently has a P/E ratio of 72?
Once a company goes public they are no longer at the helm, no matter how well intentioned their initial goals were they are no longer. Boards of directors, shareholders, etc. only care about bottom lines and profit... not furthering the good of anyone. Don;t kid yourselves, Google is far from its humble Uni. beginnings and it will never go back.
I trust them as far as I can throw 'em.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Better question, who's putting their secrets on web pages that Google can index? These are web sites. They are supposed to be publicly available.
Google searches you.
Just curious, but what exactly are these all so precious secrets that need protecting.
Obviously, if you're living in Area 51 this doesn't apply. But for the vast majority of people what do we really have that is so important.
The big one is of course salary, I know a lot of people who are really secretive about this one. Why? Who cares - it's really only interesting if your raking it in - in which case it's probably published in some kind of company return - or your making the same as any other joe schmo and it's published in some crappy salary review (or close enough).
Second one, deepest emotions/thoughts. Either you've put the on the web through a blog or you've not told anyone - in which case until Google Brain comes out, that's where they're staying.
Third, opinions. Everyone thinks that their opinions are unique. Bad news folks they're not, you share them with millions of others - no one cares.
Fourth, shopping habits. So what if the local supermarket knows I buy bread, cheese and eggs. And if they use that information to sell me stuff I want - well all the better.
I'm sure there a loads more types of secret but I'm just at a loss to know what the big secrets that Google can possibly know that we all need to get upset about the erosion of our civil liberties.
Of course, if you are living in a police state and you risk death if the government figures out your real intentions, then this is obviously important. But what do you care, your living in a police state!
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Not to pick on Billy Boy. I trust no corporation, not even google and their reassuring motto. Ultimately a corporation answers to the shareholders and eventually, regardless of a companies motto, promises, etal ...... the shareholder wins out. It's that simple really. Of course their motto is broad and non-specific enough that it gives them lots of leeway. No evil indeed. From who's point of view, or in what country or.... insert your own.
And so we have some "dirt" about of all things dating. Now that's really hitting the bottom of the barrel here. Of course with such a gossip rag as "Us" its only natural the article be 80% old biddy tongue wagging and 20% anything of substance.
As for Googles decision regarding China. Well lets see here. Your in a foreign country doing business and some are getting wrapped around the axle cause that business follows that countries rules, policies etal? What the hell is the matter with you snot nosed little whiners? What would happen if a foreign company started violating our rules here in the US? I think you knuckleheads need to get a grip on reality. We may not agree with China's policies and I'm sure they take objection to some of ours. But no sovereign nation has the right to tell another how to run their business.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Out of all of the major Search/Email companies, Google seems to be the one with the best intentions. I haven't yet had a problem with anything Google has done and I see no harm in indexing the world. Who knows, maybe one day I'll be able to log onto Google and actually find the information I want, without having to go through all the dud results first :)
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." - HL Mencken
"pretty much a softball effort"
Of course it is. It's Time.
"In the morning, they noticed a change. The writing on the wall at company headquarters had been changed; it now read:
....to excess'."
'An Animal Shall Do No Evil
September 2004: Google omits controversial news stories in China
The question isn't only whether or not you trust Google. Or any company, for that matter.
...) and the governments of their countries involved, all of them can snoop and pick at your traffic.
There are many companies (ISPs, telcos,...), people (admins,
And here we are, sitting and wondering if you can trust Google with your private information when we're sending it unencrypted across wire that can easily be tapped. It's kinda like wondering if your can trust your steel doors when your walls are made of plywood.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ten pages of interview with the buzzword trust used to create a very weak air of intrigue. It's a PR piece. The part about trust is thrown in there to try and add some zest to the plain fact that Google has marched in, set up camp, and dominated nearly everything it gets into without any serious hiccups.
What could be more boring than a business history without any serious scandal?
Can We Trust Google?
No. They're run by people, and they're unpredictable, and they could one day decide to do something pretty bad.
But it's convenient to do so, so we take the risk and have fun arguing to ourselves one way or the other, making arguments that make us feel more secure or more paranoid, depending on which frame of mind we tend toward in the first place.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
Keeping all our data on Google will make it easier for the government to spy on all of us and save us from ourselves.
There are plenty of "non-corporate" entities (in the sense that most people on slashdot use the term "corporate") that are in receipt of your private data and information about your history.
Your dentist's office? Your kids' family-run daycare facility? The obscure regional charity to whom you donate things (like money)? The alumni association that actually directly debits your checking account every quarter? The small professional newsletter that has all of your correspondence? The online forum that seems too small-time to worry about, but which knows every search string you've ever entered while engaged in some flame-war about USB vs. Firewire?
There are plenty of people who through simple incompetence (to say nothing of malice) can use or let go of information about you, your family, and your dealings with the world. "Corporations" actually have more at stake, in terms of their public reputation, stock price, etc., when they make a big mistake. A small-town doctor's office with copies of your checks, links to your prescription and insurance info, etc., is much less likely to be well firewalled or even thinking, beyond locking the closet with the file server, about true security.
To say nothing of the corner restaurant that recently hired some new waiter that's been mag-swiping credit cards after serving you your pasta. Dumb and unethical people operate at all levels of organization, both personally and professionally. I do hosting work for all sorts of individuals, groups, non-profits, and businesses. Believe me when I say that the larger businesses are way more focused on keeping your data battened down than are the others, even though things like messages and credit card numbers flow just as readily into the hands of the smaller, looser, less capable entities every day.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
What a terrible analogy. No one but Google hears your request, not everyone in the whole world. This is important because there's an expectation of privacy between you and Google (well, there WAS before all this NSA wiretapping came to light). I wouldn't even rule out the possibility of curent, or future privacy laws preventing Google from tying you to your requests, and selling that information. I'm fairly certain that the phone company is prevented from selling the records of who you call and when. (I could be wrong on that with all the telecom de-regulation).
AccountKiller
If Google were to go bankrupt if it ever revealed my secrets, I'd trust them. But not any sooner.
Your criterion for trust level is extremely low. For many people who create and destroy corporations on the fly the bankrupt is quite not a taboo. So, your statement is more about a worthlessness of your secrets than about trust.
There you are, staring at me again.
Can we trust OURSELVES!??!?!!?
Dun Dun Daaaaaahhhh!!!
That's pretty cool!
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead." - Benjamin Franklin
Do what is right and let the consequence follow
Then what criterea would you use?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
- I do not trust the US Government.
- The US Government, using the Patriot Act can subopena my secrets from Google without my knowledge or consent.
thereforeThe question is so much of a no-brainer I could write the entire discussion to go along with it myself.
The only thing you people would have to supply are such delightfully insightful crap comments like "I would trust my mother's vagina with Google" or on "the Soviet Google they inspect mother's vaginas".. That is the really challenging part.
Google has saved all search queries, timestamped and IP-logged, since the dawn of time. Google has also demonstrated a complete willingness to furnish access to this database to the government at any time the DoJ wishes.
So, the short answer is, no, we cannot trust a company that will harvest our private information and turn it over to the current fascist administration on a whim.
Because chances are in your lifetime, ownership of that data will change hands.
If nothing else, the current management will die.
You cannot see into the future ergo you cannot trust it to act with benevolence toward you.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Hmmm, let's see ... storing all user info in a searchable database on Google's servers (including all documents on users' computers if Google Desktop has its way) is in the best interest of:
a) The users, who pay nothing;
b) The advertisers that have made Google a $150 billion company;
c) The shareholders;
d) The CIA and NSA.
Do the math people.
A-Bomb
Here's what I think is going on. It's not about Google and China or Google and Trust. It's about Google and the US government. Google stood up to the Bush Justice Dept over search records. Today, generic ones, tomorrow maybe more specific ones.
The result? A large stock slide and all this speculation on how Google is "not to be trusted." It smacks of Bush tactics -- turn your enemies strength into a weakness. Trust = mistrust, Bad = good, etc...
Was Time a big supporter of the War in Iraq? Is Time hammering on the latest Bush scandals in anything more than a typical corporate media lipservice kind of way?
And can anyone explain why Google had a sudden, one-time tax hit that no one else predicted? From what I understand, if not for this 40% tax hit in the last quarter, Google would have beat its Wall St. estimates by a penny or two at least. How is it that analysts didn't see the tax hit coming and yet everyone jumped on Google's sudden "big miss?" Is it possible the tax hit was something the IRS "figured out" after a call from the WH?
And what exactly is behind all this "Google is really evil with China" crap? Sure, no one outside the Chinese gov't wants censorship there. But it's China that's censoring. Google has to place physical servers in China to offer any level of quality service due to China's meddling with Google.com and other sites. Servers in China are subject to Chinese law, no matter what anyone might want. So it's a choice between self-censoring by law and crappy service.
For those of you who'd choose "no service" do you practice what you preach? I hope you don't use Chinese products, electronics, clothing. And if the measure of business ethics is whether a given government has done wrong, then why don't you protest all of the other companies that do business with China, or all of the other countries that do wrong, including, at times, the US? Should Google pull out of the US market over Iraq, or secret torture, or unwarranted wiretapping? They tried to stand up to the Bushies, and look what happened so far...
Oh, it's becuase Google said something about evil. Well, I never took "don't be evil" to mean Google had to be the world's Mother Theresa. No one expected them to donate all their profits to starving children, did they? Or to avoid all advertizing because ads are largely misleading (why else would anyone buy this crap?) "Don't be evil," to me, meant "don't be microsoft"--don't screw your competition--play fair and win on the merits. And they've done just that. They label ads, they even label when they're censoring in China, which is about all one could expect.
Bottom line: don't trust Google with your sensitive data. Don't trust anyone. Don't even put it where people can steal or subpoena it. Common sense.
Then what criterea would you use?
I do trust no one so I share no secrets. Well, you produced a very cute profiling question. Nice try.
There you are, staring at me again.
Huzzah!
A-Bomb
I find that when companies start out, with their original founders that know their stuff, things are ok. Later, the originals leave/die/forced out, and bean counters take hold. Then, I don't trust them. Some companies later "find their roots", and maybe can trust them again.
Have you considered that because Google stood up to the government that a lot of negative press is being put out? From the way the Bush Admin works, it seems plausible to assume that their would be an unsaid rule to toe-the-line in the Google case because if they didn't then the next big "leak" may go to the competition. This happens. A perfect example was the Rumsfeld political cartoon which was use to give the press an official chastizing on White House letterhead.
What about other companies like Microsoft (Hotmail, MSN search, MSN messenger, ...) or Yahoo (Yahoo Mail, Search, IM, ...)
Seems to me that focusing on Google isn't exactly fair when there are several companies who have been in this business much longer.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Of course not. Everything you post to /. is recorded somewhere. So is everything you said on Wikipedia and every query you ever made on Google, Yahoo, etc. etc. Not to mention all the ads that trace where you've been. And anyone can correlate all that together. So what are your choices? Turn off your computer? Use something like idzap for all your Internet work? Because privacy is dead. All you have is unimportance. As long as you remain unimportant, then no one will care what you do.
retarded? Or are they just trying to hurt Google? The government asked many search engines for private data, and several just rolled over and gave it up, without thinking twice. Google resisted, and now Time paints them as the ones we should reconsider trusting? WTF?!
Unpleasantries.
I've said it before on this site, but I always get modded down (like the parent here again).
In real life though, secrets are commonly shared by multiple people, and a medium is required.
If communication needs to take place over sufficient time or space, that medium will likely be in control of some corporation. (i.e. postal service, phone operator, e-mail host)
Thus there must be some set of criterea by which to determine the trustworthiness of the corporation controlling that medium.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
..if you use the "spread indexing over multiple computers" option, they'll get a copy of your documents uploaded to Google servers.
Then along came Microsoft, and everyone thought it was the sexiest thing around. People believed in Microsoft. But in time they came to resent its dominance, and the Justice Department took notice, and now many people hate Microsoft with a passion.
And then along came Google, and ... well you get the story.
We can't trust anybody with our "secrets" - so the obvious solution is to not actually put our "secrets" out there for everybody to know. There are reasons that there is a directory called "public_html" on many a web server.
This sig no verb.
No, how can you *ever* know that you can trust someone?
Use cryptography, then you don't have to trust the company/whatsoever who's controlling the media.
...between anonymous and private.
You can't honestly expect to use the internet and be anonymous about it.
You can use a service and expect a degree of privacy but just because you expect does not equate to being the case.
All the prolog out of the way - can you really trust anyone? If you want something private, never let it leave your head...if it is truly that important to you.
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
proposed new mission statement: Don't be too evil - guys!
Artificial intelligence is the study of how to make real computers act like the ones in the movies.
As succinctly pointed out by another fellow ./ in another thread on google, the media hype may not be 'fair' when it focuses on google but no other company today is waiving a "Do no evil" banner. In the words of one of Yahoo's CEO's: "Well, of course you shouldn't be evil. But you also shouldn't have to brag about it either."
In fact, the very strategy that gained so much trust and support for google may now be backfiring as they try to mediate these conflicts. They need to expand into China, but do you censor? Is that evil? Who assigned Sergey and Page as the moral police? How come they can call the shots on what gets filtered? Couple this with the Patriot Act where google can make all the fuss they want but in the end they'll have to concede and keep mute about it and you get articles like the one we are discussing here.
So personally... No I don't trust google. It's not because of any industry attachments or a failed stock acquisition, its common sense. I'll keep my data on my own hard-drive, I won't index it with a third party tool and I will encrypt my email. Call me paranoid but at least I sleep well.
Don't forget, shiny side out if you're trying to stop them from controlling your mind, shiny side in if you're concerned about them reading it.
Maybe you should use one layer of each just in case.
What I'm really saying is that you're noting a situation, ascribing motives and intents to how it became that way and then railing against those motives. But who are you really arguing against since you created the intents yourself?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
In Soviet Russia, search engine satisfies queries about YOU.
> Google is actually controlled by the government, and is used to spy on millions of computer users a day.
And since everyone uses google for search and email, the only reason we can think of why the government actually don't know crap, is that they are reading the reports upside down
I think this is a funny question. Corporations aren't people. While consumers (and other businesses, govt's etc.) should be "trusted" to deliver good products or services and live within the law, their primary obligation is to deliver value to their shareholders - which means maximizing growth and profit. Anyone who wants to "trust" a company like a person is barking up the wrong tree. That said, I am personally concerned about what Google could do with the data they have about their users. When push comes to shove, they'll use the data in a way that helps the company grow and make profit. They can put their "do no harm" motto to good use in PR and probably even believe it but when it comes right down to it they're most obligated to do no evil to their shareholders.
More than God and Government... Yes As a company I trust them more than most but looking down the road... who knows they are becoming too big to be trusted.
Next question?
I say no company is worth trusting. Even if they are worth trusting now, that's a reflection of the people in charge right now. Once those people start handing control to other people, that trust is diluted. Presumably they would choose other trustworthy people, but who knows what lurks in the hearts of men (and women).
Now, I'd be the first one to be touting the ol' Anti-Goverment, don't trust the man crap. But this whole post is fuck-tarded, these people have spent their entire business careers showing that they're not out to screw you. The moment they get caught doing something even remotely "evil", they are fux0red, no one will trust them again. Put this scrutiny to rest, if there is one company that is worth watching for fuckup's, it is those "everything must cost money" assholes at Microsoft. All I'm saying is that if there is one company out there that deserves the benefit of the doubt, it is good ol Google. The submitter of this article should get repremanded for posting a "Flame starter".
Thank you for asking, but no, we can't trust them with our secrets. A secret is, almost by definition, only known to a very small group.
No. This is the creation of a new centralized authority, and such entities cannot be trusted...or rather, it is predictable that they both will be trusted, and will abuse the trust.
N.B.: I'm not making a prediction about any particular point in time. If your information only needs to stay secret for a month or a year, it might be quite reasonable to calculate a tradeoff and trust Google with it. The prediction is that at some point, be it tomorrow or a decade from now (or even longer), Google will engage in massive abuse of trust. The assertion is that this needs to be allowed for from the very start.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You can trust Google. At least they fought for your rights, and every other search engine gave up the search records right away. and i would not trust microsoft. anyone running windows is a tool
the indexing of public pages is clearly not the point here
A google image search finds this as a photo of Marissa celebrating her 30th birthday. She's got to be a geek if she stands up in front of people like this - if not a geek, a fellow dag :-)
http://www.undergoos.com/marissa_speech.jpg
|>>?
Given the way companies are set up and run there is no way I trust any of them. I do not trust power structures that place control in the hands of a few individuals. Such structures will always lead to corruption. Witness how the American constitution and political system have been remoulded to the will of big corporations - all of which are controlled by a few individuals.
Google is no different to any other company. Their behaviour regarding China has shown that they will do whatever they like/need to/have to to turn a profit. There's also a lot of money there and where there's money, there's evil.
Just like any other large company if you must give them information then make sure it's as wrong and as random as possible.
I'm happy to "give away" masses of data to corporations - I just don't guarantee any of it is factually correct.
It's very confusing to me that people are flipping out about the latest Google/privacy news.
-China -- people who can get around the Chinese firewall can still get to the normal google.com, and people who can't at least have a censored search engine, whereas before they had none.
-Danger of subpoenas -- what I'd like to know is, for all you people making filthy searches that you're desperate to kepe secret: do you use e-mail services from any major providers? Ever e-mail anything particularly private to people who do? All the major e-mail suppliers regularly get subpoenas for various account logs -- and none of them try to fight them in court like Google. If you're uber-worried about privacy and are doing things that you really thing federal agents want to subpoena you for, maybe, just maybe, the internet isn't the place for you. For the rest of us, the federal government has the power to subpoena dirt on us. It has had it for a long time, and I haven't been worried. I'm not going to get scared now just because one more company is being pressured to fall in line.
I started to doubt about Google's kindness when I first saw the
"xxxxxx@gmail.com | Personalized Home | My Account | Sign out" bar in the upper part of www.google.com.
Now everytime I do a search through Google I feel like being observed. Do they monitor what I search for or what?
Google has no date retention policies and keeps a permanent record of everything you have ever search for along with your IP address for every search.
If Google even Remotely valued its users privacy they would not be keeping that information for all time.
Long term Google is a danger to us all. I'm not saying AOL/Microsoft/Yahoo is any better, but Google is just as big if not more a threat then all of them combined. Like I keep saying you need to consider what google is going to look like 10 years from now.
I'm starting to think people who avoid computers aren't so foolish afterall.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Well chipping in my 2p here:
At the most basic level is the cliche that something is only a secret when only 1 person knows it.
However my useful secrets are between 2 or more parties
e.g.
my bank details are secret between me and my bank - if anyone else gains knowledge then the trust beween myself and bank has been broken and I am liable to fraud.
What friends have talked to me about while drunk are secret.
etc
In this day and age these secret exchanges can and do take place over the medium of the internet which google has made its goal to index and catalog.
So I do go to lengths to protect the above mentioned secrets, but there is an impled trust with the service google provides (e.g. gmail) in the same way there is an implied trust with my friends when I have an online chat about my opinions of an*l s*x. The online nature of this is important because regardless of what laws currently exist, laws to protect your privicy online should exist that are akin to the level of trust society is currently happy with.
People like to use the postal system as an analogy, I prefer to use the pub!
Suppose I'm having a private conversation at the pub as I am oft to do about my sex life.
If the pub were to install microphones so it could monitor this exchange and sell it to the highest bidder, then that would be a breech of trust and should be stopped. But you say, you're on the pub's premises, so it could be in their T&C that they may monitor any exchanges had in the pub - I still say that is a breech of trust and we should not frequent a pub that did this.
Now google is very close to this at the moment, although google is at the moment stopping at being the barmaid who knows what drinks you like, senses your mood and suggests appropriate drinks.
Saying that google has a right to my pass my information to the highest bidder because I have asked them about it like saying that fred at the pub should be free to discuss the details of my sex life with all his friends because I discussed it with him.
In my social circles that would be a big faux pas and I hope that it is in others too.
Ok not the best analogy, but you get the jist at how I determine privacy has been breeched.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
For the past few days, I've been doing Google searches that look like this:
"Google, what is your data retention policy?"
and
"2037: my cookie is *still* here?"
and
"Hi to my friends at NSA"
Google would notice if enough of you do the same.
I suggest doing searches on the hour: 1PM, 2PM etc., so the clustering
will draw attention. Have fun.
Don't mess with The Phone Company. Piss them off and you'll be using two tin cans and a piece of string.
anyone complaining about data privacy at google should also be laughing at how there are no big complaints about Apple's .Mac service for backing up personal data on apple computers. both google desktop and .Mac are voluntary. quit whining.
buncha' left wing assholes
dta... and don't forget it.
anywya, it isn't about trusting google, anyway. google can be forced to give up information when a declaration of war is interpretted to give the feds unlimited powers to go behind our backs and nobody does anything about it.
just because the white house lawyers told bush it was okay... btw, who hires these lawyers? who promotes them? the white house?
when was the last time these suits told bush what he didn't want to hear?
i bet they are sprint "yes men."
I think we can safely say that all companies (google included) can't be trusted. Information, has and always was a prime source of $$$ for any company. But we had ways of controlling our personal info. Now with the Internet, information is much easier to come by for these companies. And what have we gotten for the effort? Viruses, spyware, pop-ups, RIAA lawsuits, spam, software patent suits, child porn, and lots of poorly written software. I say screw online! Pull the plug and put these AOL, google, yahoo, MSN type companies out of business. Don't give 'em shit!
Sunday, Feb. 12, 2006
In Search Of The Real Google
An inside look at how success has changed Larry and Sergey's dream machine. Can they still be the good guys while running a company worth $100 billion?
By ADI IGNATIUS
It's time to make some big decisions, so the Google guys are slipping on their white lab coats. After eight years in the spotlight running a company that Wall Street values at more than $100 billion, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are still just in their early 30s and, with the stubbornness of youth, perhaps, and the aura of invincibility, keep doing things their way. So the white coats go on when it's time to approve new products. For a few hours, teams of engineers will come forward with their best ideas, hoping to dazzle the most powerful men in Silicon Valley. Google paid crazy money to attract top talent--supercharging the nerd market in the process--and this is the recruits' chance to show the investments were worth it.
The Google guys can be tough sells. Page, a computer geek from Michigan who as a boy idolized inventor Nikola Tesla (you know, the guy who developed AC power), has a Muppet's voice and a rocket scientist's brain. Brin, born in Russia and raised outside Washington, is no less clever but has a mischievous twinkle in his eye. When he drops little asides--"Let's make the little windows actually explode when you close them," he tells a group presenting new desktop software--no one seems certain whether to laugh or start writing the computer code. Both men often rise from the conference-room table to pace or to grab a snack or just to appear bored. In a culture of creativity, there's nothing wrong with keeping people off balance.
A team of four engineers enters the meeting room, each clutching an IBM Think Pad. They have just 20 minutes: a digital clock projected on the wall ticks it down. You don't go before Brin and Page--joined by CEO Eric Schmidt, 51, the Silicon Valley veteran brought in a few years ago to provide adult supervision--until you have your pitch down. And the way Google operates, you don't have your pitch down until you have the numbers to quantify its superiority. The engineers tell Brin and Page that they can generate extra advertising revenue by adding small sponsored links to image-search results, as Google already does with text searches. "We're not making enough money already?" Page asks. Everyone laughs. The share price has soared as high as $475, making Google, in market-cap terms, the biggest media company in the world. (The stock plummeted early this month on earnings that Wall Street didn't like, although it's still far above its 2004 IPO price of $85.) The engineers press on. Their trials predict the tweak would be worth as much as $80 million a year in additional revenue. Brin isn't moved. "I don't see how it enhances the experience of our users," he says. It probably wouldn't hurt it much either. But the Google guys reject the proposal--"Let's not do it," Brin declares, to the engineers' obvious disappointment--leaving the $80 million on the table.
Whether Google gets it right in sessions like that--balancing business opportunities against consumers' trust--is crucial to the company's future. After eight years of incredible growth, it's fair to ask whether Google is due for a stumble. To put it another way, Can Google maintain its success and remain true to the ideals that made it so popular? These are the guys who adopted as their informal corporate motto "Don't be evil." Sure, analysts in recent years have asked frequently whether Google's luck has run out, and yet the company kept thriving. But its vulnerability was plainly evident two weeks ago when jittery investors cashed out en masse after it reported an 82% increase in its fourth-quarter profit (below the market's expectations) and again after Google said it was launching a heavily censored Chinese-language site. Plus Google faces tough competition from big players like Yahoo!, which is making a dramatically different bet on the Internet's fu
It would be interesting to see Google's response when they analyse the data for those users uninstalling Google Desktop and cancelling their Gmail accounts, giving the reason 'I am concerned about my privacy' as the reason for cancellation. Combine this with each user's search history and Google Toolbar browsing history, and I wonder if there's a positive correlation with those users who read Slashdot (just an example, any sites where Google privacy is discussed would do)?
I think it is safe to say that you can trust Google. I mean, if you don't want your stuff posted on Google, then don't post it in the first place you know? Like, leave all your personal info out of the thing. It's that simple. If you feel different, I wanna hear about it!
I think most of you are missing a key point. Google stands up to U.S. government because the company thinks it can win base on U.S. law. Google didn't stand up to Chinese Government because there is "no law" in China. Google shouldn' have given us the line that they must obey local law. The chinese government doesn't follow their own consitution which will have protect freedom of speech. If Google really want to fight, they can take the chinese government to the chinese court and make a statement. But they didn't. Not because the local law forces them to because they know they can't win in a legal system that doesn't follow their own law. In other words, Google has no balls like any other business entities in the world. They only stand up only if they think they can win.
The question is rather why one _needs_ to trust Google... do you want to marry it? Do you tell Gmail your most secret knowledge? Do you use unqncrypted e-mail communication to set up your world domination plans? If yes, then that question really doesn't matter. anyway.
/. post.
Yet another senseless
Maybe I'm paranoid, however, do people stop to think that Google is simply a corporation like any other, and that their primary motive is not "do no evil" as they would state it is, but to make profit. That is the chief motivating factor of any corporation, by law, for christ's sake. I know that they have sold computer saavy people with this line of rhetoric they have currently, but the truth is that Google is simply a corporation, it doesn't have a soul and it doesn't have morals. The reason why they want to indicate that you can trust them is so that you will trust them, because your trust is probably a large section of their future business.
Let's face it folks, anyone buying the "do no evil" line is most definitely too easily persuaded. Google can't have morals anymore than a building has morals. A corporation is an institution like any other, it does not have moral fiber and you shouldn't trust it with anything vital.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
No. Duh.