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The Web's Worst Privacy Policy
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "With much of the web upset over about Google's latest privacy policy changes, it's helpful to remember it could be much worse: A search engine called Skipity offers the world's worst privacy policy (undoubtedly tongue-in-cheek), filled with lines like this: 'You may think of using any of our programs or services as the privacy equivalent of living in a webcam fitted glass house under the unblinking eye of Big Brother: you have no privacy with us. If we can use any of your details to legally make a profit, we probably will.' The policy gives the company the right to sell any of your data that it wants to any and all corporate customers, send you limitless spam, track your movements via GPS if possible, watch you through your webcam, and implant a chip in your body that is subject to reinstallation whenever the company chooses."
Every time I use Google, I get this unnerving feeling that Larry Page is petting a cat somewhere and telling a henchman "Soon we will have enough to blackmail EVERYONE...bwah, ha, ha, ha!"
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It's obviously a joke, but, that said, courts will not necessarily enforce contracts that are so one-sided as to be entirely unconscionable or ludicrous. I'm pretty sure this fits the definition...
Here is a direct link to the privacy policy.
http://skipity.com/privacy
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
that no one has yet mentioned that Skipity is just a front for Bing.
Dog is my co-pilot.
They've always been good at it. They've just been media darlings for so long that they got away with it. But the tide is turning: look at Google Plus Your Search. It's so controversial that Larry Page threatened critical employees that if they didn't like it, they should be working somewhere else.
Google has become another big corporation never happy with the money it's making. Facebook has replaced email and other aspects of the web, and that threatens Google's advertising dollars, which is over 98% of their revenue source.
That's actually the privacy policy of the United States Federal government.
And getting worse every day . . . .
Infiltrated by Google employees and well-wishers, Slashdot consistently offers justifications for every bad behavior and terrible decision coming from Google.
This will get modded down because trolls have taken over the moderation system and openly subvert it. That's fine. It just proves my point about how Slashdot reacts to anything outside the partyline. This site's news reporting is old, antiquated, and slow...
I was going to mod your trollish, vaguely conspirational, over-the-top comment down indeed, but I will reply instead. You regurgitate all the worn-out memes about the Slashdot community, who is actually anything but of one's mind. Yes, geeks and people who make the effort to think over issues have some stable opinions. This scandalizes you? Tough luck. Yes Google enjoys a favorable opinion here, and why not since their interests and ours coincide in many ways, plus they have shown courage and judgment in their actions (China, SOPA-PIPA). We also happen to know that some well-known PR houses are leading an anti-Google campaign, I understand that the way Steve Ballmer is treated around here may cultivate in him some murderous ideas, which he has actually expressed quite vocally not too long ago, but well, he deserves it.
Google is not above criticism, but you will surely not convince anyone around here that the bogy stories we read from people like you and the language you use can lead to a well thought, well articulated conversation.
If you read every website's privacy, usage, terms of use, and every other linked "agreements" every single one without exception has these vague legalese clauses that basically say what this guy says.
If it were not, you probably would not have a Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn account:
I deleted my LinkedIn account because they will turn into another FB - only they have a more targeted marketing system.
Want to market shit to just programmers? LinkedIN
Accountants? Lawyers? Project Mangers?
LinkedIN.
So why are you here?
Apparently, the reporting is bad. It's slow. it's biased. It's a hive-mind. Antiquated. Outdated. Hypocritical. A bubble. A linux advocacy masquerading as a news site. The moderation system has been openly subverted by trolls and the site itself infiltrated by Google and Google well-wishers. No commenters come here except to reaffirm their opinions with the rest of the hive.
Yet here you are. I don't understand it.
...ooh. Got it. By the way, that over there is a mirror bud, give it a shot some time.
Most privacy policies are just as bad as the "worst" privacy policy: https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=privacy+%22or+as+allowed+by+law%22
Note that they give a bunch of circumstances in which they will use your private information, but then they add in "or as *allowed* by law" which means they can do absolutely anything with your information that isn't illegal.
Somehow I think people misread it as "or as required by law" which is an altogether different thing.
In the case of Google, had some stable opinions. In many ways the USSR brought out the worst in America. Now Facebook is doing the same to Google.
The underlying problem, I think, is that Google's advertising service doesn't have a strong market lock-in. If search shifts to local over night, Google is hosed. Social has more lock-in than search.
Google has done much to admire. I'm still hoping this is just a phase. It's particularly galling to have to put up with all these Google+ changes designed to nobble Facebook, because I never gave a rat's ass about Facebook in the first place. I wish they would pat my cookies down, then denude my pages of all share and plus icons. Now I have two boy prostitutes pawing at me, instead of one. Don't you get it? You're not my thing.
NEWS.
:(
This isn't news by any stretch of the meaning.. And a viral marketing campaign posted to the front page yesterday about psychics remote sensing aliens? Jesus Slashdot.. NO news is better than turning yourself into a tabloid. Please stop with the posting of non-events and get back to the real reporting
How about this one.
actually, ALL of you are part of a campaign, deliberate or not, to poison slashdot, which alone is more worth, has created more insight, than google, microsoft, apple, facebook and twitter combined.
this used to be a vestige of cynical people who aren't fucking stupid, now it's endless bickering about some prostitute corporations, as if those didn't have their own PR outlets. cut it out, all of you. anyone who reads any of it, or spends a single mod point on something that is PURE NOISE, is basically a traitor and part of the problem.
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Skipity is just ahead of their time. Just wait 10 years in the future and they will all be like this. The Patriot Act, the NDAA, the ever expanding TSA. It is only a matter of time.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
Really? That is the BEST privacy policy I've ever seen. As proof I offer the fact that I actually read it all the way through, and enjoyed reading it. Neither of those things has ever happened before...
I don't know about him but as for me....some of us miss the old days? Slashdot USED to be the kind of place where there would be a 300+ posting arguing merits of various file systems, various features of different OSes and even if you didn't agree with a poster dammit you LEARNED because everyone brought their A games and you might even end of with some of the guys who actually wrote the thing involved in the conversation. Once we were having a conversation on various quantum theories and when i spoke up and said i was having trouble grasping a concept someone who was actually working at one of the particle accelerators came on and nicely explained in layman's terms the particular quantum effect they were shooting for and why that would be useful in computing. it was quite nice and very civil.
Now you won 't get two posts in before its crapflodded with "die" "go fuck yourself" "your a shill for (insert company)' frankly 4chan is often more civil than the dick waving fanbois we have around here now breaking the flow and fucking things up. you can't simply surf at a higher level because some of them are making 200+ accounts to get modpoints to modbomb with and often anyone that dares to not suck the koolaid they are guzzling by the gallon becomes an "enemy of freedom/truth/puppies" and will be constantly modbombed. As far as I've been able to pick up the current fanboi raging hard on list is FOSS yay, Apple yay unless its VS FOSS then boo, MSFT boo, Canonical can be yay or boo depending on the day of the week,Oracle used to be yay because they were competing with MSFT until they bought sun so they are now boo, Google yay no matter what, its all just fanboi dick waving which doesn't matter what kind of citations you provide its groupthink or bust.
and THAT is why /. has seen its numbers dropping like a stone, because people are getting sick of the bullshit and bile thanks to the broken mod system encouraging douchebaggery. As soon as i can find a website similar to what /. USED to be i'll be moving on, but its not easy finding tech sites that aren't just commercials in website format. But i can understand his frustration because those of us that remember what this site was like in the late 90s/early 00s can tell you it was NOTHING like this, it was a place geeks of all kinds would go and discuss all matter of gear and tech and learn quite a bit in the process. the only thing I've learned here in the past few years is there is an amazing amount of ways one can combine curse words and insults I previously didn't know about. Oh and to make the fanbois (or those with a perception bubble as I've been told is a more civil way to say that) feel at home let me say "All go to hell except cave 76!" and you can just insert whatever makes you go squee for cave 76 and feel accepted.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
No, Grandpa Simpson, it never was. Perhaps you're thinking of Usenet before the Great Renaming?
Helpful in what way? In an "sure, our president (for example) is doing something very bad, but it's helpful to remember a worse leader in history: Hitler" sort of way?
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.