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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."
Well, I think judgment matters.
Then we get a voice over and a cutaway. Then the snippet in question is suspiciously selected with nothing preceding it. That's his direct quote and it was stupid to say 'maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place' but what was said before it seems to be edited. If the context is search engines (which I think it is), then what he says is true. As in 'if you're looking for ways to murder your husband, maybe you shouldn't be using the Google Search engine to find that information in the first place.' Here's what follows the inflammatory statement:
But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines--including Google--do retain this information for some time ... um ... and it's important--for example that we are all subject to the United States Patriot Act--it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities.
I don't want to sound like a fanboy bending over backwards to absolve Schmidt but I want to point out that the important message people should take away from this is simply that your searches are not private. Your searches leave the premises of your private property. They go to a semi-public resting place where--under the Patriot Act--the government has the ability to access them with little commotion.
I mean, if you enjoy doing something illegal like smoking weed, don't do it in public. You shouldn't be doing it in public in the first place. Do it in the privacy of your own home. If you go to a cafe or place of business and smoke weed, the owner and workers at that cafe might be obligated to call the authorities. Similarly if you're buying weed, don't use the Google search engine to do it.
I would like to hear his whole unedited statement.
My work here is dung.
Herpes is not a crime, but I bet if you had it you would want to keep that fact private.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The problem is that everyone is a wrongdoer by someone's definition.
'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.'
Or perhaps if I have something that I don't want anyone to know, it's NONE OF THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS! I'm tired of this presumption of guilt that's become all the rage these days. We really need to get these idiots out of positions of power.
It's an obvious fallacy. The old "You have nothing to worry about if you're doing nothing wrong" argument rests on a belief in perfect justice. You'll only be punished for things which you shouldn't be doing. However, history is riddled with examples of people doing and being things for which they should not be punished, but are. Like black, gay, catholic and/or protestant in Northern Ireland, Jewish, a journalist anywhere the state doesn't want its secrets told, etc. It assumes punishments fit the crimes, which in many cases they obviously don't, like becoming a registered sex offender for peeing on a tree in a world where you can kill someone without becoming a registered murderer. You have nothing to worry about if you're not doing anything anyone in the world considers wrong.
News flash: You -are- doing something someone in the world considers wrong.
"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/
> 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.'
Has a Webcam in his bedroom, does he? I can find his medical records with a Google search? Everything he says at board meetings is published?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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.
Same false argument has been put forward to defend of CCTV.
I prefer to shit in privacy, but it seems Eric Schmidt doesn't.
He should read this article.
Solove, Daniel J., 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy. San Diego Law Review, Vol. 44, 2007; GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 289. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=998565
Seems true enough these days.
Although I'd rather counter their logic with:
I don't want my girlfriend to know I'm buying her a nice set of ear rings for Christmas. I guess I shouldn't be doing it then...
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Drugs and alcohol are easy to find treatment for. Try finding a sympathetic ear if your struggling with child pornography, or worse, contemplating molesting a child; but would like to seek help because you know its wrong. There is plenty of help for the victims of abuse, but no help for would be abusers looking for someone to help them stop. All that you will find for those people is a crowd waiting to stone them or put them in jail for life.
I don't get Google fanboyism. I really don't. Every time something like this happens, we get some idiots who are in love with Google the way geeks loved Microsoft in the early days when they were the little guys taking down Big Nasty IBM making up some absurd reason why what they are doing is just fine and that Google couldn't *possibly* do anything wrong, because, after all, their corporate slogan proves it.
Google hasn't been a friendly garage company for years now, they are a Big Nasty Megacorp looking to squeeze every ounce of value from us they can, and their method of doing that is even more invasive than Microsoft's.
I hate printers.
Every time I hear the "Well, if you have nothing to hide..." canard, I want to scream. I have everything to hide -- my LIFE. To me, it doesn't matter if my life is perfect, "normal," and utterly free of sin, excess, and debauchery -- it's still MY life, and no one else's business. I am currently (AFAIK) committing no crimes or acts of moral turpitude, yet that still doesn't mean I want my conversations, my financial transactions, my e-mail and browsing history, the books I read or music I listen to, etc. open to scrutiny, public, private, or governmental. It's still MY life, and my personal business, and I'll be damned if you or anyone else have a right to poke into it without my expressed consent.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
"Nice" and "evil" are not mutually exclusive. Google can very well donate lots of code to OSS project and rape our privacy at the same time. And, quite serious, what Schmidt said there is virtually equivalent to "only criminals need privacy".
I oppose blanket surveillance, whether by a government or by a corporation. If Google is of the opinion that I shouldn't have a right to privacy then Google is evil. Simple as that.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
"Once Google stops being open and starts trying to lock me into their services, then I'll be worried"
We hear this all the time. By that logic, Microsoft doesn't force you to use Windows, therefore they are not evil.
Google's money that they pay into GSoC pales in comparison to their revenue. It wouldn't even be a rounding error. Furthermore, it's a tax break (they set up a charitable fund for this purpose) and the money put into it is considered marketing expenses. It's not altruism, it's just creative marketing.
Google's whole strategy is setting up a Google-centric infrastructure that you depend on for email, social networking, business interaction and just about everything else. They want to *be* your Internet, and they are spending enormous amounts of cash building themselves to be your One Unified Service.
Ensuring that geeks love them by giving candy to the FOSS movement and acting all David-y to Microsoft's Goliath is necessary for that strategy. It's got *nothing* to do with philanthropy, and you're naive if you don't see it. Google is a company, and company's don't give away free things. TANSTAAFL. When will you learn?
perhaps we could post footage of him making love to his wife... Either he shouldn't be making love to his wife, or he shouldn't be concerned about anyone seeing it, right?
Eric Schmidt is a two faced hypocrit about privacy.