Google Profiling Social Network Users

David Harry writes "Google is looking deeper into behavioral targeting of social network users with three more patents. A while back, one patent came to light in the poorly termed ‘friendrank’; Google could be profiling social network users. These three patents now bring the series to five in total."

Comments

Profliling??

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Sounds painful.

Re:Profliling??

[goombah99]

Profiling? Sounds painful.

Not if you use a profilactic, and remember boys, if she says "opt out" she means "opt out".

More seriously, anyone who joins a social network wants to be profiled. Isn't that the whole point?

Re:Profliling??

[skulgnome]

Well it says profiling. I'm sure it won't hurt unless they mean it to.

Re:Profliling??

[andrikos]

Not if you use the appropriate "debugger" !

what an Obama presidency really means:

[Anonymous Coward]

Barack Obama

Re:what an Obama presidency really means:

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy Fuck. I'm leaning Obama, but quite frankly some of his supporters are creepy. It's enough to give me second thoughts.

Re:what an Obama presidency really means:

[MightyYar]

Unlike you, I'll blow some silly karma to discuss this with you.

This is just a smear. You have a misguided teacher and some misguided kids somewhere putting together a military-style presentation about Obama. This is not some concerted, nationwide movement. Frankly, it's no scarier than seeing these groups of fundamentalist Christians doing their thing.

You wanna talk politics? Talk about how each candidate will address real problems in this country. You are exploiting these poor kids just as much as the sick individual that convinced them to do this little performance in the first place. It's like political kiddie porn - stop distributing it.

Re:what an Obama presidency really means:

[mikep.maine]

If you love fascism and corporationism then vote McCain. They brought the DOW all the way to 9800 (from 14000), "you're doing a heck of a job George!" Honestly. Any candidate that can't discuss what they will do and needs to dig up some odd preacher to create fear and confusion doesn't deserve MY VOTE. Also, any candidate that can't complete a coherent sentence (any he could is she read a newspaper or two) doesn't deserve my vote either.

Re:what an Obama presidency really means:

[Anonymous Coward]

...any candidate that can't complete a coherent sentence (any he could is she read a newspaper or two) doesn't deserve...

Priceless!!

Tired of amateur fliling?

[InspectorxGadget]

Profliling - coming soon to a fliling center near you!

Profliling

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG i love Profliling!

So they _COULD_?

[Theanswriz42]

I'm reasonably confident Google _COULD_ do lots of things...

Re:So they _COULD_?

[Mex]

From the 10 year evolution of Google that I've seen, I've no doubt that they will.

You're KIDDING?

[neBelcnU]

Great googly moogly! But wait, they can do no evil!!!

Is this Total Information Awareness outsourced AND making a profit?

Re:You're KIDDING?

[MaxwellEdison]

No, they don't want you to be/do evil. Its just competition after all. They get to be as evil as they desire.

insert Snidely Whiplash moustache twirl

It never ceases to amaze me...

[yttrstein]

How many people are genuinely surprised every time Google does anything to arouse suspicion (at least six times per day) or downright confirm (at least twice per week) that one of the major points to their monolithic presence in world--and not just the tech world--is data mining?

I honestly don't understand. It's been quite clear for a number of years that Google has no problem selling jewels from their data mines to marketing clients who want them, mostly in the form of "targeted advertising".

Of course Google is profiling social network users. Someone has to figure out what they want to buy.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Google has no problem selling jewels from their data mines to marketing clients who want them, mostly in the form of "targeted advertising".

And the only reason people aren't swearing off google.com is that their not really selling the jewels. Google is doing the targeting themselves. They are NOT selling your data to advertisers. They are placing the ads themselves.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[veganboyjosh]

Someone has to tell them what they want to buy.

Fixed that for you.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[yttrstein]

It also never ceases to amaze me why slashdot comment scores go up in the presence of this sort of comment. I can tell by your nickname "veganboyjosh" that you're probably pretty angry about your perception of giant, "evil" entities pushing around the "little guy", telling him or her what he or she wants, thinks, believes, et cetera.

In no case is it that clear cut. You and your lot who appear to enjoy thinking in terms of "perpetrator" and "victim" fail to take into account the fact that these giant and wild entities like Google are made up of individual people who, at every level, are more or less just like everybody else.

They too buy things and are susceptible to marketing, and they too are largely driven by their desire to spread their seed (literal and figurative) as far and wide as possible, and convert as many people around them to their way of thinking.

It of course has stood to the reason of much greater men than me that the state of an adult's perception and desire is ultimately the responsibility of the adult in question. If someone rolls over when told what to buy, even in the most subtle marketing terms, it's entirely their own fault.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[D Ninja]

Someone has to tell them what they want to buy.

Sort of a funny story I have pertaining to this.

After my girlfriend broke up with me, we changed our Facebook status to "Single." The next day, I was on Facebook and I noticed an eHarmony advertisement that said the following:

"27 and single? PATHETIC. Visit eHarmony.com to find singles in your area."

It's funny now, but I sort of wonder what kind of world we live in where you're "pathetic" for not being in a relationship. That part is sort of sad, really.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[Jaysyn]

Calling me pathetic would be a 100% sure fire way to make sure I never visited your website.

Besides, Plenty of Fish is free.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[Anonymous Coward]

And thus it is that these ordinary guys just like you and me can go to work every day, honing new and improved methods to take advantage of the cognitive blind spots we all have, in order to make advertising even more effective. One day we'll look back and wonder at what point we went wrong.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean you post on slashdot and you had a girlfriend?

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[commodoresloat]

not at the same time; note he said "had"

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[D Ninja]

OKCupid is even better. Has a psychological spin to it (head to the site and you'll see what I mean), and is very clean/put together nicely/etc. Even uses Google's API for IMs, so bonus to them.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[D Ninja]

Exactly. I never posted on Slashdot while I was in the relationship. (Seriously...check when I started posting frequently again.)

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[jvkjvk]

It also never ceases to amaze me why slashdot comment scores go up in the presence of this sort of comment. I can tell by your nickname "veganboyjosh" that you're probably pretty angry about your perception of giant, "evil" entities pushing around the "little guy", telling him or her what he or she wants, thinks, believes, et cetera.

In no case is it that clear cut. You and your lot who appear to enjoy thinking in terms of "perpetrator" and "victim" fail to take into account the fact that these giant and wild entities like Google are made up of individual people who, at every level, are more or less just like everybody else.

Sorry, you do not get to dismiss legitimate concerns by name calling. Even if you are using the latest right wing reverse pop-psychology twist by painting your opponent as a "victim thinker" in no case is it that clear cut. It's pretty sad. You can't seem to accept the fact that there are people who see victims of large corps out there because there are actually victims of large corps out there.

The central plank of these paragraphs also seems rather tenuous. You seem to say that corporations can't be held responsible because corporations are made up of people. What? You can't dismiss the harm that corporations have caused by misdirection, nor can you just wish away that harm by shouting that being able to discriminate between the victim and the perpetrator is a bad thing! How does it help that the VP's and up of Enron, for example, were more or less just like everyone else?

They too buy things and are susceptible to marketing, and they too are largely driven by their desire to spread their seed (literal and figurative) as far and wide as possible, and convert as many people around them to their way of thinking.

So what? The fact that they also have to wallow in the filth they created is no way an endorsement of the practice. In reality they generally don't actually have to deal with the any externalities they create - if they did, the corp policies would quickly change. Make 5M+ a year and the very air around you tends to change.

It of course has stood to the reason of much greater men than me that the state of an adult's perception and desire is ultimately the responsibility of the adult in question. If someone rolls over when told what to buy, even in the most subtle marketing terms, it's entirely their own fault.

So, not only will you not think about it for yourself but you are proud of that fact? Oh boy, way to go. You also seem to be reading the wrong people. Try perhaps looking into the links forming between advertising and psychology. The whole premise behind advertising is to get you to buy something that you wouldn't have (if you would already have bought it they wouldn't need to advertise).

I think that you'll find that "entirely" is entirely the wrong word to use. Unfortunately, we seem to have a bunch of hardwired "buttons" activated by visual, auditory and other types of stimulus. The facts seem to be that external influences can indeed alter your perception and desires. Who would have thought?

Of course, your rant is actually all about responsibility or accountability, which is really funny because while you seem fully gung-ho about this on an individual level you seem to just as gunh-ho about giving corporations a free pass.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[spicate]

If someone rolls over when told what to buy, even in the most subtle marketing terms, it's entirely their own fault.

First of all, in this case, it doesn't matter what the people working at Google believe as much as it matters what they do. Even if they aren't "evil" people, their actions can have serious consequences.

Second, I understand the appeal of reframing every social problem in terms of personal responsibility, but your moral grandstanding isn't a solution. While I don't think we're just dumb automatons who will buy whatever we're told, the issue of Google both being a gatekeeper of information (via search) as well as a broker of transactions (via advertising) has the potential to be a serious issue.

Why? Marketing is about persuasion, not about helping us make rational decisions. Even the most rational person sometimes behaves irrationally. You even allude to that in your post. Exploiting those irrationalities is what a great deal of marketing is about. If someone knows the sort of thing that convinces you to buy something, they'll use it to the fullest advantage. That's what provides competitive advantage, particularly when consumer goods are relatively homogenous in terms of quality and features.

Up to this point, a lot of advertising has tried to exploit common themes that they know will appeal to many people - sex, security, comfort, etc. What Google (and others) are working on is developing fine-grained persuasive techniques. While it's pretty clumsy at the moment, don't think that can't change.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[Kynde]

It's funny now, but I sort of wonder what kind of world we live in where you're "pathetic" for not being in a relationship. That part is sort of sad, really.

Apparently you live in a different world. This is /.
Rather than pathetic it's more like status quo here.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[easytoplease]

I use okcupid (am a girl, too!) I like it.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[fuzza]

I really don't know what to make of the Facebook ads... I get the eHarmony ones too, and I've been listed as Engaged for 9 months now. :-/

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[dmsuperman]

I can tell by your username that you regularly have seizures when filling out user profile forms, but that doesn't say anything about the quality of your post or anything like that.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[foobsr]

these giant and wild entities like Google are made up of individual people

Wondering how to get 'a job' with an individual CV.

convert as many people around them to their way of thinking

To make it even more individual?

CC.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[Jaysyn]

OkCupid has been spamming me for over a year & a half & won't stop. Yes, I've opted out. I've marked them as spam & I'm still getting crap from them cause they keep switching up email servers or something. Either that or they've got a sweet deal with Yahoo. I actually have a girl at the moment & really don't need their assistance now.

Re:It never ceases to amaze me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pathetic and proud!

Not Alone

[whisper_jeff]

If people think that Google is the only advertiser who's profiling people, they're daft. Any and every advertiser with a hint of intelligence studies their target audience and does everything within their power to know them better than they know themselves. Google just has more tools at their disposal than most advertising firms but they all do it.

Re:Not Alone

[Colonel Korn]

If people think that Google is the only advertiser who's profiling people, they're daft. Any and every advertiser with a hint of intelligence studies their target audience and does everything within their power to know them better than they know themselves. Google just has more tools at their disposal than most advertising firms but they all do it.

Even more important than Google's large toolbox is the exceptionally large size of their user base, and the fact that Google knows the email addresses and real names of a large fraction of that base.

Re:Not Alone

[Clandestine_Blaze]

Precisely! You know those membership savings cards grocery stores give you? It's a trade-off. They give you a small discount in the name of "member's savings", and in turn, you give them your shopping habits. So every item you ever buy through them with that card gets recorded. It lets them pinpoint what consumers like buying, so they stock up more on the hot sellers.

And I'm pretty sure that the grocery stores do not keep this information to themselves...

Re:Not Alone

[AmberBlackCat]

I think it's also worth mentioning that the social networks themselves are profiling people. There's a reason they want you to enter your occupation, educational background, yearly income, and all other types of information.

What drives me the most crazy is Facebook actually creates search pages for search engines to index. I'm the kind of person who likes my words to be seen by everybody, but my pictures to be under my own control. So I searched for myself on Google and found that not only do they put my name and profile picture out there, but they also include a list of people on my friends list and all of their profile pictures, even though every single one of these is a "private" profile with pictures set to only be viewable by friends and "friends of friends". I realize there's a setting to disable the search page but I never enabled it in the first place, or even realized it existed until i searched for myself. I also get the part that if I want my pictures to be off the internet then I shouldn't put them on Facebook and MySpace. But it seems like they went out of their way to make them publicly available.

Re:Not Alone

[megamerican]

It lets them pinpoint what consumers like buying, so they stock up more on the hot sellers.

They can easily know what consumers in general are buying by keeping track of inventory. There is no need to know what a specific individual buys in order to know what to stock in the store.

I can only speculate as to what their real motives for tracking individuals. Most likely the supermarkets/gas stations/etc... are selling it to a private company who does God knows what with the information.

Re:Not Alone

[Jaysyn]

My family has saved over $8000 since we signed-up for Winn-Dixie's shopper card, so I think it may be a fair trade off. I don't remember exactly when we got it, but I know we've had it longer than 6 years.

Re:Not Alone

[DrEldarion]

Of course it's useful to track that information down to a specific person. One example: Say you put milk on sale for $2/gallon. Are the people who are buying milk this week new customers, or are they the same old people who have been visiting your store? Tracking information like that is insanely useful.

Put it in technical terms - in website logs, would you rather just have an overview of traffic data (you received 10,000 visits today), or do you actually want to see each request, where it came from, what pages that person accessed in which order, and the stats of that user's browser? The high-level data is useful, but the specific data is even more so.

Re:Not Alone

[Alpha830RulZ]

It's not as nefarious as you think, but there is considerable value in tracking what you buy as a single consumer, both to you and to the store. The store would rather maximize value per consumer, than necessarily maximize sales. By maximizing sales from a smaller amount of consumers, they can potentially reduce inventory, and reduce labor, thus increasing profit for a given amount of sales. By tracking not just what was sold, but associations between goods sold, you can find out some interesting things about your demographics. That said, I don't know, and cannot tell your penis size from what you buy. Even if you buy the extra large condoms.

There is a value proposition to the customer. What you/we get as a consumer is a more targeted inventory that may contain new goods that we may find interesting. The stores get data about price/purchase behavior, and that encourages them to reduce prices on key items to get you into the store. You actually want them to care about you as a prime customer, because what they do is reduce price on high volume items that you care about, to get you in to entice you to buy other items. You don't have to buy the other items. But you will, because it will be worth it to you to avoid another trip. ;-)

And yes, IAADM (I am a data miner). I just did a project like this for a major consumer goods chain.

Dupe

[Misch]

Wow, you don't say!

Re:Dupe

[frglrock]

This is not the article you are looking for

Move along ...

... unless of course this was a satirical comment about cmdrtaco's posts in general. In which case, enter wooshing noises as appropriate :)

Social networks

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't social networks just a map of superficial strategic relations? The kind of relations where in the real world you greet people friendly and discredit them behind their backs? Why would anyone put real friendships on the web? On the other hand, if your business is to sell commercials, you probably want to know who the cool kids are and avoid the ones who would take a beating for their friends.

Re:Social networks

[Anonymous Coward]

The kind of relations where in the real world you greet people friendly and discredit them behind their backs?

You obviously do not have high school age daughters.

MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[Anonymous Coward]

The Obama Nazi Youth will destroy America! Vote for McCain if you love this country!

Re:MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[Anonymous Coward]

I DO love this country - that's why I'll be voting for Obama.

Re:MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[Anonymous Coward]

I DO love this country - that's why I'll be voting for Obama.

Then you must love endless war, a police state and becoming a 3rd world nation. That is all Obama and McCain have promised. Go read his and his wife's speeches and see how many times he talks about making sacrifices. Maybe you should find out what those sacrifices are. Or you can keep drinking the kool-aid.

Re:MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[Mister Whirly]

I'd rather not drink the "a third party candidate has a real chance" kool-aid either. Sorry, but it is still a choice between the lesser of two evils the way the current system is set up. If you want to waste your vote being idealistic go ahead. But throwing away votes does nothing to change the system. Get rid of the electoral college and go by popular vote and then more candidates may have a chance.

Re:MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see what that has to do with Google profiling social network users.

Maybe I'm just missing the connection...

Re:MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[Mister Whirly]

Try reading the post I replied to, it may give you some insight. See, I was responding to another post, not starting a new thread. Welcome to Slashdot!

Re:MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[eredin]

It's not about the third party having a real chance. This year they don't. Your "get rid of the electoral college" isn't going to happen either--the two party system likes it, and so it will stay.

The reason to vote third party is because:
1. It's not about voting for a winner, it's about voting for the candidate that would best meet the needs of the country. In this election, if you vote for one of the approved candidates--and they win--you still lose. The country loses, too.
2. Only when enough people vote against the Dems/Reps will the system change. When the Dem/Rep winner only gets 35-40% of the vote, the people will start to realize that as a group they have other options.
3. You get to say "don't blame me, I didn't vote for him."

As a practical matter, third-party politics needs to start and become powerful on a local level and work its way up. It has started--there are quite a few offices around the country held by third party members, we just need to push the most qualified of these into ever higher positions.

Re:MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[Mister Whirly]

It is a Catch-22 situation. People won't vote for a third party in significant numbers until they have a chance. And a third party won't have a chance unless significant numbers vote for them. Did you vote Nader in either of the last two elections? A bunch of people did and absolutely nothing has changed. I am not willing to throw away a vote to change nothing. Voting for a third party will not change anything. It may point out that people are frustrated with the current system, but in and amongst itself won't change a thing. The only way to bring about change is to change the voting laws - until then voting for ideals is just that.

Re:MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[dwpro]

This concept of not being willing to throw away a vote posits one thing, that your single vote matters at all. It doesn't. If you vote for the candidate that wins, have you contributed? No, he would have won with or without you. Instead, you sold out to the status quo and have yourself to blame for your lack of patience and candidate that does not represent you in any meaningful way.

I will grant that some level of compromise is warranted, but I'll be damned if I will vote for the lesser of two evils. They have to at least not suck.

Re:MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[IchNiSan]

Go ask 300 folks in Florida whether their individual vote mattered in 2000 or not.

Re:MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[dwpro]

You pretty much proved my point...each of those 300 individuals would not have mattered on their own, even in that specific of an instance. In the context of other related votes, it begins to matter, but individually, it matters not.

Re:MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[eredin]

The way I look at it, if I vote for Obama, and he wins because of that vote...that sucks because I didn't want him to win.

If I vote for McCain, and he wins because of that vote...well, that sucks, too, because I didn't want him to win either.

Most folks who feel that way, see that as a reason to just stay home, or to hold their nose, vote, and hope their vote isn't the one that decides anything. I see it as a reason to go vote third party so that instead of having the two front-runners splitting the vote, I can make a statement (albeit a very small statement!), that they aren't my choice, because there's a piece of the vote that neither one of them got. Remember all the hoopla about whether or not Bush had a mandate? When you can't get near a clear majority because of third party voters, you don't have one, and maybe that affects the way you govern.

Many (sadly, most) eligible voters won't vote, because they don't know who to vote for, don't like either candidate, or don't care. When they come out and vote third party to make their "none-of-the-above" statement, change will come.

Re:MOD PARENT UP (then vote McCain!)

[IchNiSan]

OK, argument is long over, and I am replying days later.

Being considered as a part of a whole, in relation to other votes, is the ENTIRE POINT of voting. Yes, an individual vote is just a scrap of paper or a bunch of electrons or what have you, without the context of an election, but since the whole point of an election is to collect and count the votes to determine an outcome, every single one matters.

There are AT LEAST two times when those votes matter outside the context of the others, though I have a hard time partitioning these cases from the rest of the election.

1. When the voter is in the booth. As the voter has taken extra-ordinary action in order to be in that booth at that time in order to vote. It matters then.

2. In the case of a hand recount(or other hand counting) it matters quite a lot, as you have 10(I'm pulling numbers out my rear) or more people in a room deliberating over each vote. Florida for example had an large number of people from around the nation/world watching, hanging on each and every chad.

Data mining social networks

[MosesJones]

Seriously, this is a surprise?

The world's biggest commercial data search and profiling company is going to profile yet more online, public information.

I just wonder if the folks at Langley will sit up and say "prior art".

Re:Data mining social networks

[Anonymous Coward]

I just wonder if the folks at Langley will sit up and say "prior art".

That would require someone to acknowledge the existence of something within the non-existent side of our Government. Not likely, since they're still trying to deny the fact that a building even stands in front of you, let alone anything going on inside said non-structure.

This conversation never happened. Move along, nothing more t...

Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

These three patents now bring the series to five in total.

Three.

Google needs to revise their motto

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Do no evil? Hardly,... when Google became a publicly traded company their obligation became one thing..

Make money for stockholders

Few companies set out to do bad deeds but most won't rule them out. Google was supposed to be different. Regarding "Don't be evil"(tm), CEO Eric Schmidt recently clarified the policy saying that it was simply meant as a conversation starter.

Here's Google from good to bad...
Plus
Creating a foundation to fight poverty.
Plus
Establishing on-site day care as an employee perk.
Minus
Giving Brazilian police access to private photo albums on Orkut to assist an investigation into child pornography.The lesser of two evils is still pretty lame
Minus
Google's on going smear campaign against Privacy International for giving them a last place rank.
Bigger Minus
Raising cost of on site day care to $57,000 per year.
Real big minus
Instituting keyword filters at the request of the Chinese government. Google's do no evil policy only applies to the U.S.
Source: Wired 16.10

Honestly why should anyone be surprised that Google acts like any other company?

Re:Google needs to revise their motto

[rtb61]

To be fair, by far the majority of companies do not act in this fashion. They respect the privacy of their staff, they respect the privacy of their customers and of course they respect the privacy of total strangers. Only one very narrow segment of the industry continuously and very perversely invades the privacy of every one they can upon a massively and previously unheralded basis and think it is appropriate to attempt to psychologically manipulate people based upon their personal information in order to generate a profit at all costs.

Re:Google needs to revise their motto

[spydabyte]

Congratulations. You just summed up the entire 13 year history of Google in 6 bullet points.

Next time, try and broaden your biased view.

Re:Google needs to revise their motto

[Anonymous Coward]

that's typically true, but google is a very special case.

Re:Google needs to revise their motto

[Asdanf]

Google's done some bad shit, but it always annoys me when people list "filtering in China" as the worst. Google had a choice: filter in China, or don't serve any pages to China. Filtering is a prerequisite for doing business there.

And it's not like China would have caved in and reversed their laws in order to get Google. Google isn't the #1 search engine in China. The most popular is Baidu, which - unlike Google - doesn't even notify users that results have been filtered.

Google gives the Chinese a chance to know when their search results are being filtered, a chance they didn't have before. Is that really *so* evil?

Re:Google needs to revise their motto

[D Ninja]

Google bashing, huh? Ooo, fun!

Seriously, though. Your "evil" points are somewhat weak.

Creating a foundation to fight poverty.

I'll agree. That's a good thing. Although, some people will argue that they're just using it to get the tax breaks.

Establishing on-site day care as an employee perk.

You have that down as a plus. But, if I don't have kids, that means my benefits are going towards something I don't use. Sounds kind of evil to me.

Giving Brazilian police access to private photo albums...

Private? How so? Private as in Picasa's "private" where it just means you don't come up in searches (but if you know the address, you can still find the album)? Or private as in password protected, etc. Also, the albums that they were given access to - were these people already under investigation. Was Google forced to give that information?

Google's on going smear campaign against Privacy International [google.com] for giving them a last place rank.

I don't know this one, so I can't speak to it.

Raising cost of on site day care to $57,000 per year.

From what? $56,000? $0? Either way - how does this make them evil? Daycare is freaken expensive. I can't believe people use it to be honest. The fact that Google is charging someone for this is not a big deal. I don't know of any place that offers this sort of service at all.

Instituting keyword filters at the request of the Chinese government. Google's do no evil policy only applies to the U.S.

Oh, now, you had to go there. See, at the surface level, Google did evil. They filtered words. BAD GOOGLE! The problem is, if they didn't do that, they would have NO influence in China. What's worse? For them to get their foot in the door and follow protocol now and try to influence change later, or never be there in the first place? It's easier to influence from the inside than it is from the outside. Once Google becomes ubiquitous in China, they will carry a lot more sway. Hopefully that use that to help the people there.

Anyway, your cynicism is definitely well-deserved - lots of companies screw up (because they are run by people and people screw up). But, I just can't say I agree with the issues that you chose (either way).

Re:Google needs to revise their motto

[Yvanhoe]

Maybe Google should change their motto to "Do less evil", because that is what they do. Be objective, in their position they could be far far worse.

Re:Google needs to revise their motto

[Idiomatick]

I don't think employees having to pay for daycare is a 'Bigger Minus' from a global POV. As for China, look at what every EVERY other major search engine did. Worse, they hand over information that get people imprisoned for sedition. Google however refused to do any of that. Google was given the option of following Chinas laws or leaving. They pushed and got around one. As well the great firewall of china was already doing the censoring. Now if you visit google in china (try a proxy) you get a warning saying the Chinese government is filtering your results. I certainly would NOT call this traitorous or evil. They did what good they could get away with. Would you prefer they silently filter and hand any requested information over to the Chinese government like googles competition?

Re:Google needs to revise their motto

[commodoresloat]

[citation needed].

Re:Google needs to revise their motto

[phulegart]

Congratulations. You just quoted Wired Magazines summary of the entire 10 year history of Google in 6 bullet points.

There. Fixed that for ya.

I mean, the page you linked to, does dub itself as Google's 10th birthday.

Re:Google needs to revise their motto

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm also tired of this constant Google/NSA bashing. It's annoying that so many seem to automatically associate Google/NSA with evil practices, when their goal is just to make some bucks and at the meantime become aware of the information necessary for proctecting the civilized world against threats. People should be proud of what Google/NSA and Facebook/CIA are doing!

And what's up with /. and google analytics????

[objekt]

From the html of http://slashdot.org/

[script type="text/javascript"]
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
[/script]
[script type="text/javascript"]
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-32013-5");
pageTracker._setDomainName("slashdot.org");
pageTracker._initData();

[/script]

Re:And what's up with /. and google analytics????

[Spatial]

DNS resolved google-analytics.com to 127.0.0.1

Oh darn. Now how did that happen?

Why is anyone surprised?

[GlobalColding]

That a company co-funded by CIA is looking for higher granularity for their global database?!

Tag this "purpledrank"

[skulgnome]

Purple friendrank -- I'ma grip and sip.

Re:Tag this "purpledrank"

[caller9]

Just have to say LMFAO @ purpledrank. Syp-syp-sypin on som' sysurip. Gota screw it down on the third coast. jebus, that's funny.

Facebook & Youtube are already doing this

[naz404]

Facebook seems to be already doing forms of user profiling.

Back when my account was newish, I noticed that the ads on the side panel where app advertisers would advertise their app with "Your friend [insert name here + show thumbnail pic] is using [facebook app X]. Start using [facebook app X]!"

The thing is, that siderbar ad panel would advertise using the profiles of my friends whose pages I'd statisitically visited the most.

It was kinda creepy the way facebook did that.

Youtube also does something similar with its clip recommendation engine. Based on the videos I've been watching, they put in similar stuff in the "recommended for you" portion of the home page when I'm logged in.

Offtopic tag rant

[halcyon1234]

Okay, this is totally off topic-- but could whoever keeps tagging every single story with 'story' please stop? Every story is-- guess what-- a story! Adding a "story" tag is not a useful piece of information. Might as well just tag every story with "IsTagged", too.

Re:Offtopic tag rant

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, this is totally off topic-- but could whoever keeps tagging every single story with 'story' please stop? Every story is-- guess what-- a story! Adding a "story" tag is not a useful piece of information. Might as well just tag every story with "IsTagged", too.

I totally agree! Please mod parent up!

On a similarly off-topic, um, topic: why is idle pants? "idleispants" doesn't come up as a meme anywhere I've searched. Did it just happen? Is it a reference to something else? David Letterman's Worldwide Pants?

Any elucidation would be much appreciated.

Re:Offtopic tag rant

[Anonymous Coward]

This story was posted on sladhdot a few weeks ago: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=4&entryid=103688

of course I can't find the article with slashdot's crappy search.

Re:Offtopic tag rant

[inotocracy]

"story" is a system tag, its added automatically and probably used to further categorize information in the database.

Re:Offtopic tag rant

[halcyon1234]

Well then the system is a douchbag.

Re:Offtopic tag rant

[GuldKalle]

It could be useful if you search, and don't want idle- and firehose-stuff to be displayed

Profiling for Ads

[paniq]

I hope that all this uncomfortable profiling is really going to improve the ads I'm going to see.

But how will I know when it works? Maybe when they start selling penis shrinking pills.

Re:Profiling for Ads

[Anonymous Coward]

They do - its called estrogen

Re:Profiling for Ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Writing on /. I bet that is just a plan to avoid going blind!

Re:Profiling for Ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't even tell me what you plan to do with all of those shrunken penises.

I didn't sign up for this!

[Iowan41]

But I suppose if Obama is elected his blackshirts will know who to go after to disappear.

Oh hey

[kjzk]

I'm beginning to realize their slogan "Do no evil" is actually a command, not a description of their ethics.

"Hi

[circletimessquare]

I want to be a part of a vast online social networking where everyone knows everyone else's personal information, but no company will be able to infiltrate that and make money off of that"

i'm not letting google off the hook, i'm just wondering why anyone thinks this won't happen

is it wrong? is it right? utterly besides the point. it's going to happen, no matter how right or wrong you think it is, no one can stop it

Good to see some in America are waking up

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good to see that intelligence and reasoning is not totally lost to Americans. Obama is a dangerous personality cult, while McCain represents the voice of reason and experience.

Re:Evil?

[dcw]

Minus Giving Brazilian police access to private photo albums on Orkut to assist an investigation into child pornography.The lesser of two evils is still pretty lame

If I am reading this right, Lore Sjöberg http://www.wired.com/services/feedback/letterstoeditor is saying that, Google, by allowing police access to investigate child pornography charges, makes Google 'Evil'?!?! If some freak was storing images of someone raping a toddler on hardware my company owned, he'd be lucky if I the only thing I did was allow the police access to his crap. How is this action a 'lesser' evil?!?! If Google turned over every single picture of child pornography from hardware they owned to the police, I'd demand they give Google a Nobel Prize for service to humanity.

All Your base are belong to us .......

[ranjeet.walunj]

google should get into following projects as well --- - Worldwide Google Security Number agency (something like Social Security Number)
- Run Spy Agency (They already know many more things about us than probably we know about ourselves)
- Visa/Passport Agency
- Start Television channels (They already have satellite)
Iâ(TM)m sure they can definitely run targeted ads on Set-Top boxes
- Start Hospitals
- Start schools (All kind of)
- Start building military applications and appliances
- Provide alternate Energy source and make money
- Run a full fledged financial institution
(World needs few more players in this zone â" after the current debacle)
catering to banking needs
investment needs
mortgage
credit authority
â¦.and so on
- Start something on geologists and geophysicists
First target to find oil mines
- Start film production house (producing all type of films including adult movies)
- Start a Soft+Hard Drink manufacturing company
- And many more â¦â¦â¦â¦..