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Google's Real Name Policy, Why You Are the Product
bs0d3 writes "Google tells their investors: 'Who are our customers? Our customers are over one million advertisers, from small businesses targeting local customers to many of the world's largest global enterprises, who use Google AdWords to reach millions of users around the world.' Site users don't seem to understand. It's not that it's free. It's that you are the product being sold. ThomasMonopoly points out, 'I'm unaware of any company that feels responsible to their product. And if I'm to understand that they're responsible to their customers, the advertisers, I don't want "the world's largest global enterprises" dictating my identity or choosing who in Syria is granted a voice on the world stage.'"
Is this really new to anyone who hasn't lived in the cage for the last 80 years? This business model is a de facto standard since Phil Taylor Farnsworth invented the tele. Nothing to be upset about. You don't have to use Google if you don't want to. Besides, I'd rather be a product of a company that does no evil than a client of some other companies that do.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
It shows that the "omg free stuff" marketing works to people. People also go crazy about coupons and all kinds of "give us permission to spa.. mail you and get these cool things" offers and everything else. Even many slashdotters go to great lengths to defense Google just because their stuff is free (and you don't need to use it if you don't want to!!). At the same time they're ranting how government and companies are violating their privacy, when they're themselves whoring it out.
So don't think it can't happen to you, as it has to me and I was following their rules
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I'm unaware of any company that feels responsible to their product.
That's rather unimaginative. Lots of companies (or rather the people who run them) do show some responsibility toward their product. The first example that comes to mind is animal breeders: the good ones care about the animals they raise and have ethical standards in how they treat them, even when they are going to be sold as food (all the more so when they are going to become pets). Many artists certainly feel responsible toward their product, even when they sell it.
To what extent is this true of Google? Time will tell, but it's unproductive to say that because they are in this to make money it's impossible for them to be responsible. The real question is what combination of public visibility/pressure, economic incentives, and regulation will lead to optimal outcomes.
.sig withheld by request
ALL are targeting us. They are all selling to us and our information. Google does sell access to us. However, you can not get specific information about us. OTH, I CAN go to MS or Apple and get any of our information. If I put in the request correctly, I can find out who is one /., including your name, address, and phone numbers. However, you can not do that with Google. They will only sell access to us. Basically, somebody can target /.ers with ads, but not spam and not getting information about each of us.
So, this article seems premature at best. Of course, I do have to wonder what will happen with another CEO change or two. Look at HP, IBM and GE. Who would have thought that these once proud American icons, allowing themselves to be gutted in China, for some short-term earnings?
It's the same as it has always been with commercial television, which most people don't understand either.
The vendor is the commercial broadcaster.
The customer is the advertiser.
The product is the viewer's soul which is sold to the advertiser in 30 second increments.
If you're not paying for something, take time to consider that maybe *you* are what's being sold.
Paying real money is very often the lowest cost way to get something.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
G.
The TV networks only traffic'd in viewers in aggregate form, e.g. college-educated males aged 18-34 watch "Seinfeld" in such-and-such proportions.
Google will use an ever-growing variety of tools to determine exactly what each man, woman, and child in the entire world is doing, thinking, buying, selling, and traveling to on a moment-by-moment basis, whether they're explicitly logged in or not. And this data will be stored, replicated, indexed, data mined, and peddled for at least the next 150 years. It will never go away.
It wasn't long ago when Google was considered the protector of everyone's all-important right to obtain any piece of digital content for free. I remember thinking, you guys are fools. Sony, Warner, and EMI want to charge us ten or fifteen bucks for a CD. They'll take their cash and be out of the picture. Google wants to own us forever. They or their successors and customers will be publishing the dirty laundry of how each of individually led our lives long after we're dead.
Well, "Duh." Same for TV and radio. It's a REALLY old business model.
Here's what I taught my kids, growing up: Follow the money.
It's been the staple of "free" commercial TV. You, the viewer, are not the "valued customer". You're the product, to be sold to the ad companies. Why the outcry now?
I don't think it's good or that I feel like it's ok to "sell" me, but, people, if you really just noticed that now, I wonder where you've been the last 50 years.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Oh well... Nothing we can really do about it. Ive been using google mail for my main email account for some time now. It will be hard to replace it specially because of the aggregation/generic mail client features. But I guess I have to, since in google's book I am with my extremely stable(15+ years in use) pseudonym a persona non grata. Many people have extremely good reasons for using pseudonyms. I'm not one of them. I simply chose a different name to live my creative/online life under and I intend to keep it. If Google thinks that makes me unfit to consume their services, then I will have to find something else.
Is the poster and TFA seriously proposing we can use the newspeak-marketing-BS from a sales brochure to evaluate the ethically values of a large multinational corporation?
Would it make a difference if the same marketing-BS-brochure stated that freebee end users were the customers?
Trusting hot air marketing text = fail! No matter what you conclusion is.
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
Google's naming policy strikes me as a non-issue. It won't prevent anyone from publishing indirectly, by way of an out-of-area friend, which is safer option anyway if you're posting about a government that wishes to silence you. It seems to me that worst case, it creates an opening for Google's competitors. Last I checked there were still many of those. Were it a government decision it'd be a different matter.
Making the world a better place, one psychotic episode at a time.
Google is not "more evil". They just have the better tools, if NBCBSwhatever had the tools, they'd do EXACTLY the same.
Companies see you as a way to make money. By selling to you, or by selling you. Either is fine by them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...is that to most people that's free.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Slaughterhouses don't charge the cows, do they?
What's new is that Google has found success (initially, at least; people seem to be wising up lately) among the self-proclaimed and self-absorbed digerati crowd that heretofore viewed themselves somehow above the Marketing that always suckered in the mere mortal consumers beneath them. The smug, sniffy, MS-hating, open source espousing, latte-drinking, Starbucks-frequenting hipsters with fifty-dollar haircuts all fell for the warm gooey spin that using Google products made them better people -- which would have been hilarious just-desserts if it hadn't had the unfortunate side-effect of increasing their market share so much.
Google is the modern equivalent of a huge, integrated television network, perhaps what in the past might have been a combined NBC/CBS.
It's pricey output, the things it spends its money on, from Google Maps to search to Google + to bandwidth are today's equivalent of tentpole programming like Ed Sullivan, Bonanza, The Tonight Show, Roots etc,. Its product of course, is viewers, us in other words, who are bundled and sold to advertisers in essentially the same fashion the TV networks did in the sixties.
Surely at this point in time this can't be up for debate or even news.
We "watch" Google all day long. Sometimes for hours, sometimes for moments. The fact that we interact a bit more with it doesn't alter the business equation or the reality of our relationship with the company.
- js.
'I'm unaware of any company that feels responsible to their product.
First of all that says more about him than Google. Most companies are.proud of their products.
The end users are not the product. The product is "exposure" - page views if you will - and the end users are the suppliers of that product.
Google, just like any other company, can't screw its suppliers without consequence.
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
The problem is that Google has been super-late on the ball for requiring real name identities and has no facility to verify (tell me, where do you see Google Stores?)
Like eBay and moreso PayPal, you can pay for access to nexislexis and pretty much ruin fraudsters who try to misrepresent themselves as someone else (as in identity theft.) However the issue people have is they want to use their "Anonymous Coward" pseudonyms... and more than one person may use it. Imagine how many weeaboo's named "Yuki" are out there and how many real Japanese have that name.
Had gmail started out with identity validation, it would never have taken off. Everyone would be using hotmail or yahoo mail. They still don't verify anything, so this real name policy is dead in the water. If Google had started with a PayPal like product, then yes because of the requirements to interface with the banks that ONLY use real names is the reason for it.
Here's how you get a bank account in the US:
1. You need a SSN or some other taxpayer ID number
2. You need good credit more or less.
3. You need several forms of ID (I had to use a passport)
Then you wait and get approved. Now roll back just a bit. How do I get a bank account under a pseudonym? You can't. I mean sure, I could send the bank some fake info, but it'll get flagged. However millions of illegal immigrants manage to open bank accounts... So what's the real issue?
The real issue is that there is no guarantee of identity. Corps want it so they have someone to sue, but if you don't exist, then the company is out some money.
Let's use one more example. mint.com
mint.com interfaces with all your bank and investment accounts... how does it work? It saves a copy of your secret questions and passwords obviously. Otherwise it wouldn't ask the questions repeatedly. At no point in time do any of my bank accounts actually ask me to verify that mint.com is allowed to access. So in theory anyone could open a mint.com account and access anyones bank account provided they have their login info, and the bank will never see that fraudster access the account. (PS you can't transfer money via mint.com, it's just a online budget system.)
On the flip side of this is the ePOST system that Canada Post has. This allows the banks to see your bills, but you have to authenticate on both sides (your bank and your bill payee) Still... nobody is asking to see the real name.
The point being that at no point in time is the REAL NAME ever useful. I'd pretty much only do online business under my pseudonym and have had to make up "last names" whenever one of these stupid sites wouldn't accept a single name. When I deal with anything directly financial related, I use my legal name, (eg paypal) even though the email address clearly shows my pseudonym. And this is the point.
Google DOES NOT need real names. If they were to suddenly operate as a bank, they would temporarily have access to REAL NAMES for purposes of initiating a billing system with a bank or credit card, but beyond that, the real names aren't needed, and undesired. And this is where Google has made the fatal mistake. People are using google with pseudonyms because they ARE NOT conducting financial transactions. If they want to start conducting financial transactions people will go make a new google profile JUST FOR THAT. For their facebook clone, nobody wants to use their real name, otherwise they'll just go use Twitter instead.
The export of Canadian personal information outside the country is governed by PIPEDA. Google simply doesn't have the right to demand any personal info be sent to their servers outside the country's borders. This is effectively the same legislation that Germany later copied.
Also, government-issued ID is not to be used as "identification." The social insurance card numbers are ONLY to be given to employers and government agencies, and, at your option, to your bank (unless you have an interest-bearing account) - and it doesn't have a photo. The universal medicare card, which has a photo, is also not to be used anywhere except when dealing with medical services such as hospitals and pharmacies.
That leaves your drivers license - IF you have a drivers license. And even that is classified as "personal identifying information".
Even despite the fact that it isn't. What's the point?
Advertisers don't care what your name is as long as they know what you are likely to buy. If my name is Joe Schmoe that tells them nothing more about my buying habits. Now, if they can say my handle is twerpmeister67 on hamstersrock.com, then they have something they can sell to advertisers. Petsmart can try to sell me corn cob bedding, or whatever.
Better yet, let people have multiple handles, just like they do already. Tying those together, but allowing them to be separate in the consumers mind would be the best of both worlds. That way people can surf around however they want (e.g. Justin Bieber fansites) and not be worried about being outed as some kind of weirdo later. Say your trying to play video games with your kids or something. You don't want unsavory Bieber adverts popping up when you're looking for a fun game of Dinowaurs. Instead, you want to see advertisements for more dinosaur stuff or similar games.
It really seems like Google is missing the mark here. Advertisers, too. But honestly, I'm not that surprised.
As a prospective vendor of Google, I would like to dictate my terms for delivery of the product. Namely (1) my private information is not part of the deal, Google's not to be allowed to sell or redistribute that further without my permission, and (2) I demand to be fairly compensated in the form of payment in cash from Google to provide the product of eyes to view customers' AdWords ad.
All this "free stuff" has a price. Which is why I'm not part of Facebook and have no interest in Google+ at its current pricing.
"You are the product! Ooga-booga-booga!!1"
It's just a sound-byte meant to whip you into an outrage by equivocating advertising with slavery.
Company X provides a product.
You, the customer, pay for it with tiny portions of your time.
Company X then sells those bits of time to other companies.
You are not being sold. You are willingly looking at a few ads in exchange for a product. I know outrage feels good. It's like a drug. But find something real to be outraged over.
Philo T Farnsworth invented US television, which is that commercial stuff in which the viewers are the sweetcorn, the advertisers are the buyers, and the TV company is the farmer. John Logie Baird invented British television in which the taxpayer is the customer, pays directly for the product, and elects politicians to keep an eye on things. That's quite different, as well as being a whole lot better.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The fact that something happens and is known, by those who make the effort to think about it, to happen does not make it reasonable, fair or acceptable.
The fact that there are other companies which do even worse things doesn't make it good either. Nor does it matter that the evil company has a slogan which implies that it will do no evil, if they still do evil.
Comments like this, "You don't have to use Google if you don't want to." are breathtakingly dumb (surely you're just trolling? mensababe?). When use of a service makes it so much easier to carry out business than the old way, people will tend to migrate to it. If use of all the rival services incur much the same penalty in the form of your data being packaged and sold, then the people do not have a choice. They are forced to use the service - or live in a cave.
Why not set up a rival business providing the same service but without the nefarious bits? Because nobody would finance it because the profits would be so much smaller when the rival companies are able to collect and package the highly profitable user data. For it to become viable the collection of user data has to be restricted by law.
That is where governments should step in and mandate that the collection of user data be separated from payment for the service. If a user signs up the company should not be able to tie that contract in to an agreement to give up personal data too.
Governments don't step in because they are in the pockets of big business. They too want to drive up revenue because each transaction means more money for the government and more funding for grandiose schemes.
the point is whilst your screaming at the wall saying "the fact is it isn't" the wall is quite happy there being a wall.
Repeat after me: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
You don't have to use Google if you don't want to.
Yeah and you can email your resume in .tex format for jobs too because you hate Microsoft and Adobe. If the only way you can successfully advertise your product online is through advertising companies like Google, then you have little "choice". I suppose a child like you has to learn about lock-in caused by network effects. Don't worry you can leave the thinking to others if it hurts your brain.
Seriously, this is a non story.
How is this news? Advertising is used in a free product! Have you ever listened to radio?
None of this is news. If you are surprised by the fact that someone on the Internet is using advertising to make money, you should probably step away from the computer now.
And you know what. Big deal, this type of attitude makes me laugh. You are the same people who wouldn't pay for a service if it killed you.
"But what about the poor person in Syria?!" They could just as easily name themselves John Smith as they could SyRiAfReedomFigher83.
Let me tell a big secret. If you are of no interest (and that's most of you), no one will care. You are just another number. Get over yourself. If you are interesting, using SyRiAfReedomFigher83 is not going to protect you.
Google has two sets of customers and two sets of products. They sell service access (product) to you (customer) in return for your attention. They sell your attention (product) to advertising companies (customer) in return for money. You are a customer whose attention is a product, just like if you go into a recycling center and manage to barter one item of yours (your attention) for a different item (service access). You don't cease to be a customer just because you pay in something other than money. These kinds of story are part of what is wrong with Slashdot.
This is no different than commercial radio or television. A station owner drafts programming that will attract a demographic that's desirable to a chosen set of advertisers. The radio listeners or television viewers are a unit of exchange between the station and the advertisers. Users are fodder, not customers.
till you can prove that it actually happened for no fault of yours. A random retard like you has zero credibility.
You have any proof of this? or is this rampant speculation on you part?
> When use of a service makes it so much easier to carry out business than the old way, people will tend to migrate to it. If use of all the rival services incur much the same penalty in the form of your data being packaged and sold, then the people do not have a choice.
This is just so freaking stupid that I couldn't help but to joint this discussion: "all the rival services incur much the same penalty in the form of your data being packaged and sold" is simple NOT TRUE. You can BUY a service for few bucks a month that will give you email and everything you need. If you want to "carry out business" no matter what business it is then surely you can afford Slicehost or Linode server for $20 a month and now YOU control all of your data. No one will "package and sell" it. Problem solved. Please stop spreading such a bullshit.
This is precisely why I trust Microsoft (and other companies that want my money) and not Google. Microsoft have something to lose. They want my money for certain product and they will want my money for the next version of the product. It is in their best interest to keep me happy and not betray my trust because if they do they go out of business. With Google if they don't betray my trust they go out of business anyway because they betray the trust of their customers.
I do NOT care! I know I am a product to google and radio station and tv channels and I don't care because I don't use them.
Do you think slashdot is any different? Samzenpus, were does your salary come from? Readers or advertisers? Anything that sells more views is a go right? That is why headlines are often widely inaccurate and story angled chosen to raise the maximum ire so there will be lots of ads impressions.
Google isn't making a soap box it isn't making the next facebook, it has seen linkedin and liked it and thought it could do more with it. I got several gmail accounts, including some totally fake ones and some real ones. I am not intrested in google+ because frankly my live ain't intresting enough to share. Did a massive dump in the toilet, posted on slashdot, that is about it for today...or was it the other way around.
Some nutters think that Google owes them a public forum on which they should be able to say whatever they want, provide zero revenue for Google, annoy Googles paying customers at will and basically be complete an utter assholes... well, silly Google for not wanting to do that.
If you care so much about some guy in Syria, run your own website that allows free speech. Enjoy the gigantic bill and zero income. Oh, your bleeding heart doesn't extend to your wallet? How un-expected.
Google+ is a social site with real id's because that is what google has decided. Don't like it, don't use it. There are plenty of sites that require real data and plenty that don't. Make a choice and stop trying to convince everyone that YOUR choice is the right one and they are so wrong for thinking different. I almost feel like signing up for google+ now just to spite the privacy freaks... but nobody invited me yet... waaaaaaaah!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you don't like it, don't use it. I like the deal - some personal info for a lot of free, and extremely useful, services. I don't like it when you tell me what I can and can't do with my own personal information.
Yep, get ready for too-close-for-comfort targeted advertising. Girls age 14-22 that receive dick pics via gmail or SMS on their android? Ads for abortions, birth control products, and STD clinics. Guys age 14-?? that read slashdot on Friday night? Ads for Real Dolls, pocket pussy, and doritos. Women age 18-25 that read slashdot on a Friday night? They'll probably just email you directly and try to hook up.
If he's wrong then why the real names policy?
TV deals in aggregate statistics. It's done so for decades.
Nailing it down to individuals with names is not what TV has done /at all/. One is more evil than the other. If you don't understand this, you're a retard.
--
BMO
The guy writes an article slamming Google, but right at the top of the page is a +1 button.
Don't read the article! He's turning you into a product!
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Translation : "Hes not a bad guy for killing someone ! If you baddies had a gun, you would kill too !"
Sure hope you're getting paid tons to defend multi-billion dollar advertising companies.
Amazon has had an even more strict Real Name feature, with respect to product reviews at least, for some time now. Why isn't there a bigger outcry about that, I wonder? I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear later that the Google+ identity system is intended for exactly the same purpose, to "add value" to consumer product reviews. Google isn't doing it right, whatever the intention.
Yeah, and I don't want to be just a "resource" to my employer either. Yet the HR department won that one ages ago.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Uh no. People selling shit don't need your full identity. If google is selling your identity to anyone, it's government, or someone who would be the government. People selling shit only need to know if you're the same guy who had these interests yesterday so they can pitch you the same shit today.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I am not a product I am a free man. Ok google you are making money of me , then I want my cut. I think 80% of every dollar you make sounds fair. Oh and don't try and tell me your "free" products are my payment because those are making you money not costing.
Google is evil.
That's how they make money, I don't see any search engines out there charging you money to find stuff, someone else has to pay for it. Bloody astroturders.
Spotted another Google cheerleader. Cool ! Wonder how many will come out today..
Very clever attempt to marginalize the true cost, shillboy! If we were only trading a fraction of time, no one would be upset. We're smart enough to see beyond your lies and recognize there's much more at work here. Tracking our every behavior from every conceivable angle, storing all that data in perpetuity, and offering to sell or trade it to every other corporation or government body.
We're being studied. Like animals in a lab. And you want me to sit there complacently? Go fuck yourself!
Alright noted. Next article!
Apple = evil
Google = good
Microsoft = evil
Linux = good
There. You can't tell the players without a score card.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
In chapter 1, we access free content, and we enjoy it. In chapter 2, we are warned ("ooga-booga-booga", to quote artor3) that we have given up something for the lunch, and that we are at risk of ... from the summary, something about someone in Syria using my browser cookies to do something on the world stage. I'm on the edge of my seat. Now, let's see something besides foreshadowing of evil, this tinfoil hat is getting uncomfortable.
Perhaps the point is that very very large herds are prone to attacks on individuals, well I think we buffalo are aware of that. Someone could take the time to learn about me and use my browser cookies. But that's one-on-one risk, not a threat to Syria, and the herd has long ago accepted that this is the price of grazing in the prairie (or has evolved into a mountain goat).
Gently reply
Apparently this is what some of the cable companies do with their on-demand. Track what uses watch then target them with personalized ads. And in this case you are paying cable companies for the privilege of getting targed ads.
I know small companies that feel responsible to their product. Artists often feel that responsibility too. Big corporations? Not so much.
I am a product, come on, sell me. I want to be sold, but I also want to be packaged better. What is this am I wearing right now? Have you SEEN this shit? I need some better wrappers, I need shoes. Some teeth would be nice. The left eye is off a bit, well it's glass, it's all I got. The left leg is shorter and the right arm has 2 elbows, but I am good otherwise. A few pains in the stomach in different areas and the back has too many... fish scales. Otherwise I am good. Oh, if anybody saw my defibrillator, can I have it back please? I can't continue for more than 10 minutes without using it, and it's been almost 9 minutes now. The nails on the left foot... let's just say I lost my industrial strength wire-cutter. So come on, Google, I need a few things fixed before you can really seriously sell me as a product, otherwise it's false advertising. Oh, shoot, crapped myself again. It's alright, just need to change the diaper. Brb.
To reduce the longwindedness of my posts I removed some remarks about the Murdoch family and their hatred of the BBC. I will restore them in summary. That the Murdochs hate the BBC is sufficient justification for its existence.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
People without children pay towards the public education system. I live in an area which has had no recorded crime in two years, but I pay for the police. As the great Harvard jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes observed, taxes pay for civilisation.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Defend? If that's the impression you get, you read that wrong. I didn't want to "elevate" Google to the level of the TV networks. I wanted to express that they're just as evil as Google, they just lack the means to have the same impact. Google is not "more evil" than them, they just have the better tools.
Was the US "more evil" than the USSR in WW2 because they used atomic bombs? Hell no. If the USSR had The Bomb back then, sure as hell they would've dropped it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
He didn't say they're not evil, he said they're no more evil than most other companies. Lots of companies have proven that as soon as they're in a position of power, they're happy to abuse that power to further their goals. That doesn't mean the guy without a gun is less evil than the guy with, just that he lacks the tools to do as much damage.
I agreed with a few family members and friends to "ruin" Google's profiling. You and your friends are not into scubadiving at all? Sent an email or a Google+ saying how great that site is and wondering what your next scuba buying's gonna be.
No playing Yu-gi-oh at all? (I'm not), write about that cool card you saw going on on eBay for $$$.
Etc.
Just once in a while: just enough to screw their profiling a tiny bit.
Then I *never* buy anything I get an ad/adword for.
So, sure, they still know a lot about you, but they also think they know stuff they really don't.
This could probably be automated one way or another.
Well. . . I mean. . . technically, if you turn on the FM dial, YOU are the product as well. Most radio is only free because they are selling ad time targeted at the demographics listening to the station selling the ears of it's listeners to advertizers using the music as a hook to keep them captive(which is why radio has gone more toward a "genre" format, rather than the traditional block format like TV programming-so that ads can be targeted more effectively toward certain demographics based on their musical tastes) . . . that is. . . if you want to look at it with that perspective (viewing advertizing or comercialism as inherently evil). ;) There's nothing wrong with advertising. I think that Google has a lot worse problems to gripe about than that, such as working with government agencies to track people and selective filtering of certain political content as a means of censorship. I'd say, if Google weren't working with government agencies, I'd have a lot less problems with it. . . (this goes for Facebook as well *ahem*)
Those who complain about being "the product", 1) have a choice not to be the product simply by stop using the services, 2) can be a bona fide customer, by definition, simply by starting to pay services. Where is the mystery or unfairness here?
Never surf without a strong ad blocker. The web existed before there were advertisers, and would continue to exist without them because millions of individuals will continue to run web servers that offer useful information about programming, electronics, music, or whatever they want.
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i am not a number , i am a free man
In the past, I've been a huge supporter of Google and have supported them by recommending their products to friends and family and have even owned their shares at some point. But not anymore. I think the company has lost their moral compass some time ago and they've stopped caring for their users. I stopped using Gmail after their former CEO Schmidt said that people using their products don't have a right to privacy and they should "change their name" if they want privacy. As he was promoting this idea, he asked Google Search managers to remove his personal info from SERPs.
Google is now all about trying to monopolize markets, such as mobile, so they can continue being the arbiter and gatekeeper of personal information. This is why I don't use Android. I just don't trust them at all.
I hope that others wake up and see what Google has become.
Schmidt is insistent that Google has the right to know who their users are. On the other hand, Google doesn't do proper due diligence on their customers, the ones who buy ads. That just cost them a $500 million fine to the Department of Justice for running phony pharmaceutical ads. (Those supposed "Canadian pharmacies" often aren't real pharmacies at all, and many are not in Canada. DOJ went after Google because an investigation into some Mexican drug dealer was also running an offshore pharmacy.)
Because of Google's "we don't care who you are" policy about advertisers, Google has become the advertising system for a wide range of scams: typosquatting, adware, ads for free stuff that's not free, ads for counterfeit software, and mortgage modification scams. Prof. Benjamin Edelman at the Harvard Business School estimates that Google makes about $25 million a year from ads for spyware and adware, about $6 million a year from ads for "credit repair" scams, and about $100 million a year by allowing competing trademarks as search keywords (that last is being litigated.)
Most of those scams depend on advertiser anonymity. Business aren't entitled to privacy. Even in the European Union, which has privacy rights for individuals, businesses don't get that right. The European Directive on Electronic Commerce is very clear about that. Google has the right to demand proof of business identity from advertisers, and to demand that the advertiser disclose the actual name and address from which the business is conducted on their web site. Google doesn't do this, which makes Google the scammer's friend, and in some cases, as they just discovered expensively, an accomplice to criminal activity.
Google claimed to the DOJ that they cleaned up their act on drug ads. Let's see. Search for "no prescription diet pills". See a Google ad for "Phentremine 37.5 mg HCL - As low as $30. Free Shipping. www.phentreminediet.com No subscriptions, or hidden cost.". There it is, right at the top of the page, in prime position, a drug ad run by Google. This is a fake drug scam site. It's a form of drug typosquatting; the real drug is spelled "phentermine". The site has a Google Checkout seal (which may be fake) and a BBBonline seal (which is fake). Yet Google is running that ad.
Prof. Edelman says it better than I can: "I have long doubted Google's claims of innocence. For one, Google has an obvious incentive to allow deceptive and unlawful ads: each extra ad means extra revenue -- an ad in lieu of white space, or an extra competitor encouraging other advertisers to bid that much higher. Furthermore, unlawful and deceptive ads have been widespread; I found dozens in just a few hours of work. Meanwhile, it's hard to reconcile Google's engineering strength -- capably indexing billions of pages and tabulating billions of links -- with the company's supposed inability to identify new advertisements mentioning or targeting a few dozen terms known to deceive consumers. From these facts, I could only suspect what the DOJ investigation now confirms: Unlawful ads persist at Google not just because advertisers seek to be listed, but also because Google intentionally lets them stay and even offers them special assistance."
... because these "free" gifts are not free at all. There's always a cost associated with them and the cost is often higher than if you paid few dollars each month for them.
Google's become a giant corporation and they're not an underdog that we all loved to cheer for at some point. Now they're trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of "their" assets. These assets are your private information which Google has abused in the past and they'll abuse in the future.
If you want to scare yourself, give their TOS a read and then think twice before you give them another piece of your information.
Personally, I've stopped using their products altogether and now only use their Search once in a while and I do it without being logged in (don't even have an account with them anymore).
People are williingly looking at ads, but they are not willingly have their personal information, location, browsing and buying habits tracked, logged and mined in perpetuity. There's a difference.
So basically, don't try to educate anyone because it's useless. Gotcha.
In all circumstances you are never a customer Get this and get it straight now. So that you understand how to arm yourself from the grocery store to life in general.
You are not a customer your the mark.
Many cable companies already are... there''s far less need for neilson as the cable co. boxes have a lot of the watching habit info.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
"But" is a funny conjunction for this sentiment. I spend a lot of time thinking about the entitlement ratchet of the human mind, which tends to hide behind small words just like that one. Your statement is consistent with major acts of terrorism in America 9/10/2001. Should America have been investing more or less?
In this case I think what you meant is "but prudence dictates continued vigilance nevertheless". That's a lot to ask for from a small word which usually conveys "shafted again" if sifted through the large mental mesh of an unfair world.
Why does Google+ need real names?
People who use pseudonyms spend money just like people who use real names.
Eyeballs are eyeballs -- regardless of the names attached to them.
Now, of course, when it comes time to enter a credit-card number, real names are important. But we already have on-line payment systems that work perfectly fine. There is no problem to be solved there.
Some people argue that Google is doing it because they want to dominate the business of providing validated IDs. But serving up validated IDs doesn't mean that they have to kick off pseudonymous users. The two are unrelated.
Google is deliberately turning away cash-bearing consumers who use pseudonyms. I think Google is smart enough to eventually figure out how to make money from pseudonymous users, and we'll eventually see a change in policy when they do.
Because what I get in return is worth it. I get....
A great search engine
A great webmail service
Free GPS and free updated maps on my android phone
Easy to use adwords on my own site to take advantage of the rest of googles product...
Whats the problem? You dont have to use google, but you do and then complain about it?
How does google or Time Magazine, or the New York Times make most of their respective revenues? Advertising. Who buys the advertising? Paying ad customers (subscribers barely break even). Why do advertisers pay media companies? Because the media companies deliver a "product" - i.e. our eyeballs and ears. You (we) are the product, whether you want to admit it or not. Without delivering your (our) attention to advertisers, there would be no priivate media. Our attention is what the media sells; it's a complex relationship, but that's the guts of it.
The freedom to be who you want to be by Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering, Google.
...
Youtube and Blogger already have a large amount of users with pseudonyms already, so they couldn't do anything there.
However, it seems its easier for them just to apply their "real name policy" to new products, like Google+ and Google checkout
Hi,
The actual link to the article is:
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/googles_real_name_policy_or_why_you_are_product
The link posted in the story was an iFrame sandwich -- the one above is the actual link!
Merc.
Yes, this is not new. A lot of business has us, the people, as the product. For instance, the schools. Which is the school's product? The study? The students? And who are the costumers? The students? The companies who hire the students? So... yes, we are the Google's product. This is not bad. This is real.
"Dont be evil" is not the same as "Do no evil"
Seems as a silly little wordplay, but words are the stuff our reality is made of.
When I signed up for Google I expressed that I want full privacy and didn't knowingly waive my rights so I don't see the problem...
Good comments! IMO, the issues is not with a public ltd company making money with little or no care to privacy issues, the issue is more on lack of regulations on the use of private date for financial gains. Do read an old post of mine on similar issue at http://lalchandran.blogspot.com/2011/03/2020-b2b-business-model-protecting.html; comments are always welcome.
Google is not "more evil". They just have the better tools, if NBCBSwhatever had the tools, they'd do EXACTLY the same.
Companies see you as a way to make money. By selling to you, or by selling you. Either is fine by them.
Heh. You're right.
Just made me realize (and I'm not joking but it sounds humorous in my head) that the ones who are selling TO you want to be seen and show how glamorous and awesome they are, along with their products or services that are the most awesome one you could ever have.
The ones who want to sell you remain completely invisible and mysterious with lots of disclaimers that they promise to do everything correct and by the books. They always have a lot of material surrounding them that distrac... hey look at the shiny ad with the cute little shirt and th.... SQUIRREL!!!!!
Apparently this is what some of the cable companies do with their on-demand. Track what uses watch then target them with personalized ads. And in this case you are paying cable companies for the privilege of getting targed ads.
I always wondered what it would be like to have the Hulu Ad-Time question changed to:
"Which type of ad do you you prefer?"
1. The New Car that looks sleeker and cooler than all of the others on the market today *cough*
:)
2. The New Washing Machine that will clean more than 200 loads in an hour to help keep your family OnTheGo(sm) *choke*
3. Neither, because ads completely annoy the crap out of you and make you vow never to buy what you see on principle, let alone spending model of the company advertising. *cheer*
I actually prefer to stare at a black screen with the seconds counting down over watching ads. I actually get up if I'm sitting down and walk away to do something else when ads come on because I can do nothing but verbally assault the BS they're throwing forth. My favorite part of DVR technology and some televisions' live halt features is to pause and read the fine print at the bottom of most ads; OMG OMG that is effing hilarious. Oh, and that only counts for the ones that don't have print so fine that present-day DIGITAL TV MAKES IT UNREADABLE. I'm waiting for the LAWSUITS TO FLY in court on that one..... I could go on but I'll stop.