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Mistrust of Google and Facebook is a 'Contagion' That Could Spread To Every Tech Company, Says Box CEO Aaron Levie (recode.net)
Aaron Levie isn't worried about his company, Box, being regulated -- but he is worried about what happens if the government has to do something about Facebook. From a report: "It's a contagion because it's going to reduce trust in these types of platforms," Levie said on the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher. "The worst-case scenario for us is that Silicon Valley gets so far behind on these issues that we just can't be trusted as an industry," he said. "We rely on the Fortune 500 trusting Silicon Valley's technology, to some extent, for our success. When you see that these tools can be manipulated or they're being used in more harmful ways, or regulators are stamping them down, then that impacts anybody, whether you're consumer or enterprise."
Earlier the mistrust was for IBM and Microsoft. Then Oracle was added. And now Facebook and Google.
Also realize that the list just grows, the only way to get off the list is a liquidation.
What's worse is that the mistrust against the top companies is just the tip of an iceberg - you have a large number of companies that aren't visible the same way like doubleclick, cxense, ioffer etc that probably are even worse since they don't provide any benefit at all.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I see no reason why any company holding any personal data should be trusted. They are the ones that resist any regulation of personal data. They are the ones that profit off of it.
You have to earn trust. Since when has any company done that?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Mistrust of the companies is not contagious. Abuse of user privacy by big companies IS contagious, apparently. If they don't want us to distrust them, they should start acting like trustworthy companies. You can't blame users when the root problem is shitty corporate policy.
Americans are a fearful people. We're literally taught to be fearful from childhood. Who in America hasn't had these sentiments slammed into their faces at some point in life?
All politicians want to be tyrants.
All neighbors are potential molesters.
All automobile drivers are blind and malicious.
Anyone will step on you to get ahead.
We're constantly at risk of invasion, attack, or harm otherwise.
Everybody wants what we want and they're willing to take it by force.
Of COURSE Americans distrust massive rich corporations that have a plausible desire to exploit them. We've been told to expect it. And in some scenarios (oddly enough like the Facebook and Microsoft ones), we shouldn't actually trust the companies. Given that it is one of our most important principals to be secure in our person and papers (aka - personal information) and these companies are in prime place to access that personal information, we have to continually ensure that the tentative trust of customer/vendor is sufficiently earned.
But never be surprised when Americans distrust a powerful person or organization. It's literally in our upbringing.
Honestly, what makes anyone think that trusting a huge faceless corporation is good idea to start with?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The "problem" is that the mistrust of the companies named in TFS is absolutely, totally, well-deserved.
Sorry, but multi-billion dollar tech companies, startups, and everything in between is consistently demonstrating their business model is to harvest far more information about people than they realise, and then make money from it.
Yes, we distrust you, because we pretty much know you're doing the shady things you don't want people to know you're doing.
The distrust is real, and it's based on the actual fact that these companies are hoovering up tons of information about people.
Yes, Silicon Valley has a trust issue. But let's not pretend there isn't a damned good reason for it.