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Google CEO Says Privacy Worries Are For Wrongdoers
bonch writes "In a surprising statement to CNBC, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told reporter Maria Bartiromo, 'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.' This will only fuel concerns about Google's behavior as it becomes an ever more powerful gatekeeper of information; though Google says it is aware of these concerns and has taken steps to be transparent to users about the information that is stored."
"If you've got nothing to hide" is a tool of tyranny. I thought it was well and truly debunked, and yet it seems it just won't flush away.
Individual privacy doesn't need a reason. The goal of privacy is privacy.
If you're going to search for something that you don't want google spunking up 5 years later, to your post democratic, tyrant overlords, you better start taking precautions.
This is a start. https://ssl.scroogle.org/
sadly, the guy that introduced the "don't be evil" slogan, is long gone from the company...
and with how things are going with android and similar, that's noticeable...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Google and privacy. You might want to check out this, this, this, or this. People also forget that the majority of the world population is not living in the USA. US agencies are allowed to spy on non-US citizens as they like, although this is usually not emphasized for diplomatic reasons. Thus, not only terrorists and wrongdoers should be concerned about their privacy...unless Schmidt thinks that all non-US citizens are terrorists. Foreign governments should actually be much more concerned about Google than they seem to be, but as far as I know only former French president Chirac was concerned about Google and as a politician he turned out to be a wrongdoer, of course. LOL
You can make scroogle your search engine of choice although we all know that it helps less than some people might expect, because normally configured browsers leak a lot of information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Actually being a publicly held company, Google has a legal obligation to adhere to it's mission statement approved by the share holders.
The "Legal obligation to place money over principles" is a defense executives and PR firms like to toss around to shift blame.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Indeed. But it was early employee Paul Buchheit that came up with the term, not Brin.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Please stop spewing ridiculous idealism.
Nearly everyone in here broke the speed limit on their way to work, has pornography that is considered illegal in some states, software that is being used outside of its licensing terms, used drugs that are illegal somewhere in the world, music or movies that violate copyright law, and probably had sex in a way that is illegal in many states and cities. Not to mention the fact that you will be hard-pressed to find someone who does not have opinions they have expressed that could be used to incriminate them of something in the wrong context, or that some people who want to be political power consider to be illegal.
Laws are arbitrary rules written by those in charge. Rules that can change, rules that can be enforced capriciously and inconsistently. YOU PERSONALLY have done something illegal in that last year, and probably several things that a large number of people would like to make illegal. Lawyers and judges study the law for years, and even they only know a small subset of what actually is legal and illegal in any given area.
It's a trite maxim, but it's true. Here's a great video from a lawyer and a cop about why the right against to self-incrimination and privacy is so important even to people who don't think they have anything to hide. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
What would Google think if someone released their customer list?
We have it. A sample of Google AdWords advertisers:
There are about 22,000 Google AdWords customers known to us. Every time Google puts up an AdWords ad, it exposes the identity of the advertiser. Our AdRater browser plug-in rates on-line advertisers as their ads are presented to users. Unlike most plug-ins, we don't monitor user behavior. Instead, we monitor advertiser behavior, which is in some ways more interesting. This doesn't violate Google's terms of service. Every request made of Google was made by a user, not us, during ordinary browsing. We're just watching the ads go by. It's like clipping ads from newspapers to see what your competitors are doing.
As we point out occasionally, about 35% of Google's advertisers are "bottom feeders". Google needs to raise the bar on who can run ads with them. Search Google for "Craigslist auto posting tool" and look at the paid ads. You can buy "Easy Ad Poster Deluxe", a program for spamming Craigslist, through Google Checkout, so Google isn't just advertising it, they're taking a cut of the revenue as well. That's embarrassing for Google, or should be.
Eric Schmidt is a two faced hypocrit about privacy.