Posting information about his real-world location is beyond the pale. I think you'll find this is a pretty common position - why else do most phonebook CDs allow you to resolve addresses to numbers but not the other way around?
If you're going to use an analogy of a phone book, then when CNet did was tie his name to his address, which is exactly what phone books and phone book CDs do.
Indeed they do, but the entire main thrust of the article is Google - "Goole allows X. Google makes Y possible. Google is encouraging Z. (Oh yeah, and BTW every other engine on the net also allows it, but we're still going to go on talking about Google instead)".
Right, the purpose of the article was to talk about Google. You don't have any argument with me there.
The fact is (According to the last stats I read) Google only has 20-30% more of the search market than (for example) Yahoo. And Yahoo has many, many more webmail users. Yahoo also had integrated search and webmail (and all their other offerings) cookies before Google even launched GMail. Why not write a story on (again, for example) Yahoo? Why make it all about Google?
I think I said this already, but it's largely because Google is the hot new thing at the moment, and also because Google is the one who has the audacity to put "Don't Be Evil" in the prospectus of its stock offering. There's also the fact that Google is leading the way in adding more space to email accounts, and that they were (I believe) the first to tie the ads in their webmail to the content of your emails. There's the fact that they have been coming up with more and more features with progressively more concerns for privacy advocates, like their feature which saves every single search you make as well as the links you click on tying it into your own personal account, and their try at creating a proxy system which you'd use to access your entire html session, and no doubt would have eventually offered the same tracking. Google is pushing the envelope here, moreso than Yahoo or any of the other major search engines. That's why the focus of the article was on them.
Exposing people's private information != journalism.
We disagree.
Would you care to explain why letting someone have their say on a contentious issue that concerns them is "bullshit"?
It's bullshit to think that it's a right.
As I understand it you don't have to have your address posted - you make a choice when you donate money to a political party, and that's one of the consequences.
I think that's a nonsense argument, because you shouldn't need the governments permission to give someone money. But even besides that, when you make a choice to donate money to a political party and give your address to the public, don't you also make a choice to allow news reporters to link to a site which contains that information?
However, given you've self-selected as someone with strong political bias (note: I don't mean "bias" as a negative thing, just a statement of fact), I think it's only fair that people should know
So, the public should know, but journalists can't tell them? Seriously, I apologize for calling you an moron before, but no matter how hard I try I can't make any sense out of such a statement.
Granted, all these things are only really, really important if you're powerful and wealthy and could realistically influence the political process, but since there's no clear cut-off point at the lower end of the scale, nobody's forcing you to make donations and you know up-front, ahead of time the consequences of your actions, why are you whinging about it now?
Because, as I said above, I shouldn't need the government's permission to give someone money. Just because you are threatened ahead of time doesn't make it right.
Would you rather not, for instance, know about Rupert Murdoch's political leanings, and instead trust Fox News as completely impartial?
The details depend on where you live, and the taxes always go into a general fund rather than being earmarked for specifics, but yeah, gas taxes generally won't cover all the costs of a vehicle being on the road. These taxes are supplemented by ticket revenue and tolls too. But registration fees are generally tiny and go toward administrative costs, not road costs.
I don't think you can count very much of the cost of police, unless you're talking just about the highway patrol. Police do a lot more than just watch roads, aren't very useful in watching roads, and generally only watch roads to write tickets, which in turn raises more revenue for the government. As for your $10/gallon figure I suspect you're grossly overestimating things there.
Do you REALLY think these people are having fun, any more than the people I see sitting in the bar at 7 am for their first 3 beers of the day are "enjoying" their beer?
You said yourself they were getting "high" from taking risks. Can adrenaline be addictive? Sure. Can too much of it cause health problems? Yep. But is it as bad as crack? Hell no.
Personally I enjoy gambling, but I never understood slots. I prefer to get my fix through poker and the stock market, both of which have given me more money back than I've actually spent. In fact, the in joke among poker players is that it's not gambling. Some people even believe it. But that doesn't make it true.
You're joking, I assume, but here in Tampa there were rumors that the poker rooms were going to actually do that. You'd play against other people in the same room as you, but you'd do so on a computer screen.
The free market won't do it, but those are real costs that a "rational" person would pay (unless it is voluntary, thus allowing freeloaders).
The free market would work perfectly fine for garbage disposal costs. The problem is we don't have a free market, we have a government run system which charges people based on things fairly unrelated to their costs.
But you're right, most people are too short-sighted to do it unless you give them an economic incentive.
Well, most people are too short-signed to do it even if you do give them an economic incentive. Most people aren't going to recycle just because they save $1/month in garbage hauling fees. So their time must not be worth the savings.
Anyway, going back to the hybrid vs. all-gas car question, I don't think there's a clear winner with regard to which is better for the environment and society. Sure, you don't directly pollute quite as much, and you don't create quite as much CO2. But people had to spend quite a bit more time and energy to create the product, and the environmental impact of the disposal is a bit more. Even if we assume that environmental pollution is everything - and it isn't (we could have a much cleaner environment if got rid of all cars, went back to farming, etc.) - I don't think there's even a clear-cut winner for that. Battery production and disposal has a big impact on the environment, as well as all the other production and disposal of the extra features of the car. In the end which is more important environmentally probably comes down to how much you drive the car. But if you're a big environmentalist you probably don't drive that much anyway.
Besides all that, environmental impact is not the only factor in impact on society. When you add in the intangibles like more free time the auto workers had to spend with their family instead of building you a hybrid, I think the true cost is fairly well represented by the sticker cost. This is especially true because gasoline is already taxed. That's another factor there, too. By using more gas you're contributing more to society monetarily.
If you really want to spend $6000 bettering the environment, I've gotta believe there are a lot better ways to do it than buying a hybrid car. Buy and plant 100 trees. Or donate the money to an environmental group. The possibilities are endless.
Of course not, people buy hybrids because it makes them feel good inside, or because it's hip, or because it's a fun toy to play with.
If you actually cared about the environment and wanted to make a difference, you'd live closer to work, or telecommute, or carpool, or use public transportation. You'd fill up your tank with gas every couple months, and the difference in environmental impact between a hybrid and conventional car would almost surely favor the conventional car when you consider the additional resources and manpower (those people had to get to work too) used to create the car, as well as the costs of disposing the battery.
I don't think the hybrid will really be worth it until they become pluggable. Then you'll truly have a hybrid vehicle, one that can get to work and back without using any gasoline at all. From what I've read they already have these in Europe, and the Prius in America has almost all of the parts required, it's just disabled for the American version of the car.
The roads aren't paid for by registration fees, the registration fees are used to pay for administrative costs, which are the same for an SUV as they are for a Geo Metro. The roads are paid for by gas taxes, and SUVs and other heavy vehicles almost always use more gas.
Has it occured to you that the auto industry is investing billions in finding more fuel efficient cars
Just to play devil's advocate for a second, isn't it possible they're investing billions in finding more fuel efficient cars so they can patent the methods and not let them out? I read that every single Prius sold in America has just about all the parts in place to allow it to be plugged in, but that feature has been intentionally disabled.
If someone came up with an super-efficient car they could make their solution public and they would be rich and famous overnight (they could still patent it within a year). Regardless of what the oil industry thought of this, they would have nothing to gain by attacking the inventor.
Here in America what's more likely is the oil industry would make a backdoor deal with the inventor for some ridiculous amount of money, in large part because the inventor isn't going to be a person, but a corporation, which is afaid of bankruptcy, not death.
When the cost of energy from oil exceeds the cost of other sources over time, we'll start using those other sources.
And when half the country is working on extracting oil, and the other half is working on providing medical care for the baby boomers, you don't think the economy is going to suffer?
It's questionable whether or not I could do it legally, since it goes against their terms of service. One could argue that the terms of service are not binding, of course one could also argue that ignoring them is computer trespass. Either way, it probably wouldn't matter, because if you ran a webcrawler through Google you'd almost certainly get your IP blocked.
It was the fact that Google was overwhelmingly the subject of the article, the person singled out was the CEO of Google, and all other search engines and webmail systems were pretty much relegated to a single paragraph that suggested to me it might be a bit personally motivated.
Clearly the article was targetted at Google. If that's what you mean by it being "personally" motivated, then I agree.
When you follow this with ZDNet's incredibly childish response, it looked to me like CNet's editors have a problem with Google, and are using the article to stir up controversy and get advertising revenue.
At this point CNet certainly does have a problem with Google, Google snubbed them. Before that, I think it was more that Google is the most talked about search engine right now, combined with the fact that they claim to be all high and mighty with the whole "Don't Be Evil" thing.
Now don't get me wrong, I personally believe that the founders of Google were acting properly by making that statement, but a lot of others saw it as hubris, and I don't blame a commentator for taking that position.
I agree that Google has to potential to commit massive infringement of privacy, and I'm careful to not search while signed-in and to delete cookies regularly (amongst other things). However, my mild, unproven suspicions weren't enough to forgive what I see as such a blatant hatchet-job and such execrable journalistic ethics.
I think you as well as the CEO of Google are blowing this way out of proportion. The only thing I found even questionable in the article was linking to a page with the guy's address. And considering that it was already public information, I just don't see that as a big deal.
I'd argue that a benevolent dictatorship (or triumvirate, as it actually is) is heaps better than a democracy composed exclusively of people whose only aim is to maximise profits to themselves, at the expense of everyone else...
I think you make a poor assumption when you say that all shareholders only aim is to maximise profits to themselves. Personally, whenever I vote a proxy I vote with society in mind, not profit.
Apart from a few minor recent incidents, Google is generally regarded as a pretty "enlightened" company, as companies go - isn't this evidence in favour of the above?
Sure, but they're also a very young company. People change, and power corrupts.
Whether it's hot enough to cause first-degree burns or third-degree doesn't bother me that much - it's hot, I knew it was, I chucked it over myself, and I should take the consequences, end of story.
Fortunately the courts disagreed with you, and didn't allow McDonalds to get away with their negligent behavior. You might not care about the difference between a first-degree and third-degree burn, but most people do.
Simply walking away fro mthe argument and informing CNet (privately, and discretely) that they weren't going to deal with them for a year strikes me as a pretty good way of getting something back but keeping it low-key.
Sounds to me like punishment, and punishment rarely works, pretty much never works between two peers.
CNet then splashed the news all over its site, keeping the controversy (and lovely advertising dollars) rolling in.
Which is a good example of how punishment doesn't work.
That's a fair reading, but unless Google's share-price takes a nose-dive as a result you haven't lost anything, so why complain?
If the price is one penny lower than it would have been had he not engaged in this childish behavior I've lost something, and have a right to complain.
The only way I'm doing the experiment is through a live-CD or a network boot. I'm not touching my hard drive until I decide to abandon Windows.
I could buy a second hard drive, but as it's a laptop I really don't think it's worth it. I'd rather boot off disk or CD and use my linux server to serve up an NFS drive.
That is a good point, but they've still collected and collated a vast number disparate facts into a single convenient one-stop-privacy-invasion-shop page.
Except for the address, I bet all those facts are in Wikipedia. Would you consider them to be a one-stop-privacy-invasion-shop?
Google isn't the only search engine in the world, so to suggest (as they did all throughout the article) that it's solely (or even mainly) Google's fault is irresponsible.
Try reading it again. They even mention that it's not just Google, but that Google is quickly growing to be the biggest one.
They also chose a private individual as the target of their privacy-invasion.
I don't know what you mean by "a private individual", but the way I've always heard the term used the CEO of Google is far from one.
They exposed him and his details to public scrutiny without his permission, and without even informing him first. This is a gross violation of etiquette, and highly unprofessional journalistic behaviour.
Exposing people and "their details" is one of the main purposes of journalism. I'd hardly call it unprofessional.
They prevented him from exercising his right of reply before the article was published (note how there's not even a standard "Eric Schmidt/Google were not immediately available for comment" attached to the end of the article) - Right of Reply is like Rule #1 in journalistic ethics.
Right of Reply is bullshit in my opinion.
Funnily enough, I'd support this kind of legislation because of the increased transparency it causes.
So you think it's fine when the government forces you to release your address to the public, but it's not OK when someone else links to a page which contains that information. You, my friend, are a moron. I'm done wasting my time talking to you.
Mind you, your opinion appears to be (forgive me if I misrepresent) that you don't care about their ethics as long as they're making you money through your stocks...?
Let me expand on what I said. In my opinion the "Don't Be Evil" response would be to announce that Google is going to work with organizations like EPIC to institute a tighter privacy policy which includes data retention policies and stricter controls over the sharing of information between projects, and then to get right at work on implementing it. That would even arguably be the best thing for the stock in the long run, because data about what I searched for 3 years ago isn't very useful for legal purposes within Google anyway. It's useful for criminals and the government, especially an oppressive government.
I wouldn't even consider putting my trivial personal stake above what was good for society. In my opinion small personal gain is very secondary to maintaining ethical responsibility in our culture.
You're confusing what I said. I never commented on whether or not the dual-class structure was a good thing overall. But now that I have thought about it, I still don't think it's a good thing for society. Dictatorship, even benevolent dictatorship, is not an appropriate way to control power.
For example, I'm not going to sue McDonalds because I stupidly pour hot coffee in my lap.
If they intentionally made the coffee so hot that it was undrinkable, I might.
Secondly, how does refusing to talk to someone who's basically "out to get you" (and who, from their previous writing, is pretty much guaranteed to misrepresent what you tell them anyway) acting against the interests of the company?
Well, first of all, they are refusing to talk to the entire company, not just that one reporter. And secondly, by not talking to someone you pretty much guarantee that the situation is only going to escalate.
TBH, I'd be more likely to invest in them now, since the CEO hasn't: sunk to their level (especially ZDNet's execrable "apology"), demanded the article be withdrawn, threatened legal action, de-listed the sites concerned or de-listed CNet, all of which he could easily have done.
CDNet has fought this out in the press. If Google did that, I'd appreciate it. As for all those other things, I agree they'd be worse, but I disagree that they'd be in any way "sinking to their level". While we're at it let's mention that Google's CEO didn't bomb the CDNet headquarters. Cause that would have been worse, too.
To me this proves Google's "provide impartial information" and "Do No Evil" morals are intact.
To me, the CEO is being unethical by fighting a personal fight using shareholder rights.
Mind you, your opinion appears to be (forgive me if I misrepresent) that you don't care about their ethics as long as they're making you money through your stocks...?
Not at all. I don't think what the CEO did was appropriate anyway. The fact that he did it with my money is just what gives me the right to bitch about it.
That's utterly irrelevant - are you seriously suggesting it doesn't matter what CNet does, Google should always be forced to pander to them?
What I'm saying is that what CNet did gave Google, the company, no reason not to talk to CNet. And I'm appalled, as a shareholder that the CEO would take a personal animosity like this and use our company to fight about it. If the CEO wants to cut off his nose to spite his face, that's his perogative, but cutting off my nose to spite his face isn't.
I'll talk to anyone, but that's my personal choice.
You aren't the CEO of a publically traded company, and he isn't just refusing to talk to CNet personally, he's ordering his employees not to do so either.
If Google was the government, or any other public body, you'd have a point - the government works for us, so it and its members fucking well should be answerable to us. Google is a company - it only has to answer to its owners and shareholders.
Read what I wrote above. I said that I was appalled as a shareholder.
Given this, why should you hold a private entity to higher standards than your own president, who actually owes you the right and consistently refuses to allow you it?
I shouldn't. But I should hold the CEO of a company I own to the same standards as my own president, at least with regard to this particular point.
However, the thing I object to about this is the invasion of privacy and blatant personal agenda.
I don't think it was an invasion of privacy. It was completely public information which was actually required to be disclosed by the government. If you don't think your address should be made public just because you contribute to a campaign (and I don't), you should look to Congress, and not CNet.
As for the "blatant personal agenda", the story was commentary. I don't have a problem with a story giving opinion, and if a story is going to do that it should be blatant about it.
CNet wrote a very biased article that basically held Google up as solely responsible for potential invasion of privacy - instead of, as it should, showing that this is just an inevitable consequence of the greater transparency of an information society.
Here's what I see as the gist of the story: "The fear, of course, is that hackers, zealous government investigators, or even a Google insider who falls short of the company's ethics standards could abuse that information." The story also mentions that "Privacy advocates say information collected at Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN, Amazon.com's A-9 and other search and e-commerce companies poses similar risks." But then it quotes Chris Hoofnagle from EPIC who says "Google is poised to trump Microsoft in its potential to invade privacy, and it's very hard for many consumers to get it because the Google brand name has so much trust"
I think the article was pretty much dead-on, and it said what I've been thinking for quite a while now. In fact, I've started to use Google less since they've come out with more features. I find their privacy policy to be inadequate in two ways: first, they don't include a data retention policy, and second, that they "share the information submitted under your account among all of our services in order to provide you with a seamless experience and to improve the quality of our services." And as a Google Adsense publisher, that information includes my social security number, bank account number, name, and address. Presumably they've tied all that information to what searches I do, they certainly haven't promised not to do so.
Funny thing - others have held this up as a good thing, since it (theoretically) ensures that Google continues to follow the vision of its founders, rather than being forced (post-IPO) to drop all ethics and morals and chase the almighty buck for its shareholders.
A good thing for society, maybe, but I was considering it as a shareholder.
TBH, it just sounds like someone's throwing a hissy-fit because they did inadequate research before investing. Buyer beware.
A hissy-fit? Not at all. I could sell today at a huge gain. I haven't even decided whether or not I'm going to sell now that I know this additional information. If you asked me before I found out about this move by the CEO, I would have said that I trust him to run the company in my best interests. But now I'm not so sure.
I'll probably hold on for a while and just keep a closer watch on these guys. I have faith in the greater fool theory.
Interestingly, the main reason I bought Google in the first place was what the CDNet story was all about. The company has incredibly powerful information at its fingertips, and information is one of the most undervalued aspects of a company, especially a tech company. Whether its GAAP or pro-forma, the value of information only appears on the books of a company when and if it is acquired.
I see a big difference between directly giving the information and merely linking to another site which has the information. Of course, I don't see anything wrong with giving out the information in the first place.
..how did actually publishing the information advance the reporting of the news, though?
It showed that it was actually true.
Was there any reason to rattle off specific bits of personal information instead of simply saying "We were able to find his SSN, address and personal cell number"?
The only information involved which I'd consider personal was his address, and they didn't rattle it off, they linked to the page which had it. It probably would have been better to have linked to the google search they did to get the info, but then again, if they did that Google could have taken it down.
Or maybe he was being sarcastic when he said "The submitter's sarcasm detector looks like it's woefully inadequate," and it's your sarcasm detector that is screwed up.
Slashdot Mirror
At the end of the day, you'd still need something to drive to work.
Unless you walk, or bike, or take public transportation, or ride in someone's carpool.
Posting information about his real-world location is beyond the pale. I think you'll find this is a pretty common position - why else do most phonebook CDs allow you to resolve addresses to numbers but not the other way around?
If you're going to use an analogy of a phone book, then when CNet did was tie his name to his address, which is exactly what phone books and phone book CDs do.
Indeed they do, but the entire main thrust of the article is Google - "Goole allows X. Google makes Y possible. Google is encouraging Z. (Oh yeah, and BTW every other engine on the net also allows it, but we're still going to go on talking about Google instead)".
Right, the purpose of the article was to talk about Google. You don't have any argument with me there.
The fact is (According to the last stats I read) Google only has 20-30% more of the search market than (for example) Yahoo. And Yahoo has many, many more webmail users. Yahoo also had integrated search and webmail (and all their other offerings) cookies before Google even launched GMail. Why not write a story on (again, for example) Yahoo? Why make it all about Google?
I think I said this already, but it's largely because Google is the hot new thing at the moment, and also because Google is the one who has the audacity to put "Don't Be Evil" in the prospectus of its stock offering. There's also the fact that Google is leading the way in adding more space to email accounts, and that they were (I believe) the first to tie the ads in their webmail to the content of your emails. There's the fact that they have been coming up with more and more features with progressively more concerns for privacy advocates, like their feature which saves every single search you make as well as the links you click on tying it into your own personal account, and their try at creating a proxy system which you'd use to access your entire html session, and no doubt would have eventually offered the same tracking. Google is pushing the envelope here, moreso than Yahoo or any of the other major search engines. That's why the focus of the article was on them.
Exposing people's private information != journalism.
We disagree.
Would you care to explain why letting someone have their say on a contentious issue that concerns them is "bullshit"?
It's bullshit to think that it's a right.
As I understand it you don't have to have your address posted - you make a choice when you donate money to a political party, and that's one of the consequences.
I think that's a nonsense argument, because you shouldn't need the governments permission to give someone money. But even besides that, when you make a choice to donate money to a political party and give your address to the public, don't you also make a choice to allow news reporters to link to a site which contains that information?
However, given you've self-selected as someone with strong political bias (note: I don't mean "bias" as a negative thing, just a statement of fact), I think it's only fair that people should know
So, the public should know, but journalists can't tell them? Seriously, I apologize for calling you an moron before, but no matter how hard I try I can't make any sense out of such a statement.
Granted, all these things are only really, really important if you're powerful and wealthy and could realistically influence the political process, but since there's no clear cut-off point at the lower end of the scale, nobody's forcing you to make donations and you know up-front, ahead of time the consequences of your actions, why are you whinging about it now?
Because, as I said above, I shouldn't need the government's permission to give someone money. Just because you are threatened ahead of time doesn't make it right.
Would you rather not, for instance, know about Rupert Murdoch's political leanings, and instead trust Fox News as completely impartial?
The details depend on where you live, and the taxes always go into a general fund rather than being earmarked for specifics, but yeah, gas taxes generally won't cover all the costs of a vehicle being on the road. These taxes are supplemented by ticket revenue and tolls too. But registration fees are generally tiny and go toward administrative costs, not road costs.
I don't think you can count very much of the cost of police, unless you're talking just about the highway patrol. Police do a lot more than just watch roads, aren't very useful in watching roads, and generally only watch roads to write tickets, which in turn raises more revenue for the government. As for your $10/gallon figure I suspect you're grossly overestimating things there.
Do you REALLY think these people are having fun, any more than the people I see sitting in the bar at 7 am for their first 3 beers of the day are "enjoying" their beer?
You said yourself they were getting "high" from taking risks. Can adrenaline be addictive? Sure. Can too much of it cause health problems? Yep. But is it as bad as crack? Hell no.
Personally I enjoy gambling, but I never understood slots. I prefer to get my fix through poker and the stock market, both of which have given me more money back than I've actually spent. In fact, the in joke among poker players is that it's not gambling. Some people even believe it. But that doesn't make it true.
You're joking, I assume, but here in Tampa there were rumors that the poker rooms were going to actually do that. You'd play against other people in the same room as you, but you'd do so on a computer screen.
The free market won't do it, but those are real costs that a "rational" person would pay (unless it is voluntary, thus allowing freeloaders).
The free market would work perfectly fine for garbage disposal costs. The problem is we don't have a free market, we have a government run system which charges people based on things fairly unrelated to their costs.
But you're right, most people are too short-sighted to do it unless you give them an economic incentive.
Well, most people are too short-signed to do it even if you do give them an economic incentive. Most people aren't going to recycle just because they save $1/month in garbage hauling fees. So their time must not be worth the savings.
Anyway, going back to the hybrid vs. all-gas car question, I don't think there's a clear winner with regard to which is better for the environment and society. Sure, you don't directly pollute quite as much, and you don't create quite as much CO2. But people had to spend quite a bit more time and energy to create the product, and the environmental impact of the disposal is a bit more. Even if we assume that environmental pollution is everything - and it isn't (we could have a much cleaner environment if got rid of all cars, went back to farming, etc.) - I don't think there's even a clear-cut winner for that. Battery production and disposal has a big impact on the environment, as well as all the other production and disposal of the extra features of the car. In the end which is more important environmentally probably comes down to how much you drive the car. But if you're a big environmentalist you probably don't drive that much anyway.
Besides all that, environmental impact is not the only factor in impact on society. When you add in the intangibles like more free time the auto workers had to spend with their family instead of building you a hybrid, I think the true cost is fairly well represented by the sticker cost. This is especially true because gasoline is already taxed. That's another factor there, too. By using more gas you're contributing more to society monetarily.
If you really want to spend $6000 bettering the environment, I've gotta believe there are a lot better ways to do it than buying a hybrid car. Buy and plant 100 trees. Or donate the money to an environmental group. The possibilities are endless.
Of course not, people buy hybrids because it makes them feel good inside, or because it's hip, or because it's a fun toy to play with.
If you actually cared about the environment and wanted to make a difference, you'd live closer to work, or telecommute, or carpool, or use public transportation. You'd fill up your tank with gas every couple months, and the difference in environmental impact between a hybrid and conventional car would almost surely favor the conventional car when you consider the additional resources and manpower (those people had to get to work too) used to create the car, as well as the costs of disposing the battery.
I don't think the hybrid will really be worth it until they become pluggable. Then you'll truly have a hybrid vehicle, one that can get to work and back without using any gasoline at all. From what I've read they already have these in Europe, and the Prius in America has almost all of the parts required, it's just disabled for the American version of the car.
The roads aren't paid for by registration fees, the registration fees are used to pay for administrative costs, which are the same for an SUV as they are for a Geo Metro. The roads are paid for by gas taxes, and SUVs and other heavy vehicles almost always use more gas.
Has it occured to you that the auto industry is investing billions in finding more fuel efficient cars
Just to play devil's advocate for a second, isn't it possible they're investing billions in finding more fuel efficient cars so they can patent the methods and not let them out? I read that every single Prius sold in America has just about all the parts in place to allow it to be plugged in, but that feature has been intentionally disabled.
If someone came up with an super-efficient car they could make their solution public and they would be rich and famous overnight (they could still patent it within a year). Regardless of what the oil industry thought of this, they would have nothing to gain by attacking the inventor.
Here in America what's more likely is the oil industry would make a backdoor deal with the inventor for some ridiculous amount of money, in large part because the inventor isn't going to be a person, but a corporation, which is afaid of bankruptcy, not death.
When the cost of energy from oil exceeds the cost of other sources over time, we'll start using those other sources.
And when half the country is working on extracting oil, and the other half is working on providing medical care for the baby boomers, you don't think the economy is going to suffer?
It's questionable whether or not I could do it legally, since it goes against their terms of service. One could argue that the terms of service are not binding, of course one could also argue that ignoring them is computer trespass. Either way, it probably wouldn't matter, because if you ran a webcrawler through Google you'd almost certainly get your IP blocked.
It was the fact that Google was overwhelmingly the subject of the article, the person singled out was the CEO of Google, and all other search engines and webmail systems were pretty much relegated to a single paragraph that suggested to me it might be a bit personally motivated.
Clearly the article was targetted at Google. If that's what you mean by it being "personally" motivated, then I agree.
When you follow this with ZDNet's incredibly childish response, it looked to me like CNet's editors have a problem with Google, and are using the article to stir up controversy and get advertising revenue.
At this point CNet certainly does have a problem with Google, Google snubbed them. Before that, I think it was more that Google is the most talked about search engine right now, combined with the fact that they claim to be all high and mighty with the whole "Don't Be Evil" thing.
Now don't get me wrong, I personally believe that the founders of Google were acting properly by making that statement, but a lot of others saw it as hubris, and I don't blame a commentator for taking that position.
I agree that Google has to potential to commit massive infringement of privacy, and I'm careful to not search while signed-in and to delete cookies regularly (amongst other things). However, my mild, unproven suspicions weren't enough to forgive what I see as such a blatant hatchet-job and such execrable journalistic ethics.
I think you as well as the CEO of Google are blowing this way out of proportion. The only thing I found even questionable in the article was linking to a page with the guy's address. And considering that it was already public information, I just don't see that as a big deal.
I'd argue that a benevolent dictatorship (or triumvirate, as it actually is) is heaps better than a democracy composed exclusively of people whose only aim is to maximise profits to themselves, at the expense of everyone else...
I think you make a poor assumption when you say that all shareholders only aim is to maximise profits to themselves. Personally, whenever I vote a proxy I vote with society in mind, not profit.
Apart from a few minor recent incidents, Google is generally regarded as a pretty "enlightened" company, as companies go - isn't this evidence in favour of the above?
Sure, but they're also a very young company. People change, and power corrupts.
Whether it's hot enough to cause first-degree burns or third-degree doesn't bother me that much - it's hot, I knew it was, I chucked it over myself, and I should take the consequences, end of story.
Fortunately the courts disagreed with you, and didn't allow McDonalds to get away with their negligent behavior. You might not care about the difference between a first-degree and third-degree burn, but most people do.
Simply walking away fro mthe argument and informing CNet (privately, and discretely) that they weren't going to deal with them for a year strikes me as a pretty good way of getting something back but keeping it low-key.
Sounds to me like punishment, and punishment rarely works, pretty much never works between two peers.
CNet then splashed the news all over its site, keeping the controversy (and lovely advertising dollars) rolling in.
Which is a good example of how punishment doesn't work.
That's a fair reading, but unless Google's share-price takes a nose-dive as a result you haven't lost anything, so why complain?
If the price is one penny lower than it would have been had he not engaged in this childish behavior I've lost something, and have a right to complain.
The only way I'm doing the experiment is through a live-CD or a network boot. I'm not touching my hard drive until I decide to abandon Windows.
I could buy a second hard drive, but as it's a laptop I really don't think it's worth it. I'd rather boot off disk or CD and use my linux server to serve up an NFS drive.
That is a good point, but they've still collected and collated a vast number disparate facts into a single convenient one-stop-privacy-invasion-shop page.
Except for the address, I bet all those facts are in Wikipedia. Would you consider them to be a one-stop-privacy-invasion-shop?
Google isn't the only search engine in the world, so to suggest (as they did all throughout the article) that it's solely (or even mainly) Google's fault is irresponsible.
Try reading it again. They even mention that it's not just Google, but that Google is quickly growing to be the biggest one.
They also chose a private individual as the target of their privacy-invasion.
I don't know what you mean by "a private individual", but the way I've always heard the term used the CEO of Google is far from one.
They exposed him and his details to public scrutiny without his permission, and without even informing him first. This is a gross violation of etiquette, and highly unprofessional journalistic behaviour.
Exposing people and "their details" is one of the main purposes of journalism. I'd hardly call it unprofessional.
They prevented him from exercising his right of reply before the article was published (note how there's not even a standard "Eric Schmidt/Google were not immediately available for comment" attached to the end of the article) - Right of Reply is like Rule #1 in journalistic ethics.
Right of Reply is bullshit in my opinion.
Funnily enough, I'd support this kind of legislation because of the increased transparency it causes.
So you think it's fine when the government forces you to release your address to the public, but it's not OK when someone else links to a page which contains that information. You, my friend, are a moron. I'm done wasting my time talking to you.
Mind you, your opinion appears to be (forgive me if I misrepresent) that you don't care about their ethics as long as they're making you money through your stocks...?
Let me expand on what I said. In my opinion the "Don't Be Evil" response would be to announce that Google is going to work with organizations like EPIC to institute a tighter privacy policy which includes data retention policies and stricter controls over the sharing of information between projects, and then to get right at work on implementing it. That would even arguably be the best thing for the stock in the long run, because data about what I searched for 3 years ago isn't very useful for legal purposes within Google anyway. It's useful for criminals and the government, especially an oppressive government.
I wouldn't even consider putting my trivial personal stake above what was good for society. In my opinion small personal gain is very secondary to maintaining ethical responsibility in our culture.
You're confusing what I said. I never commented on whether or not the dual-class structure was a good thing overall. But now that I have thought about it, I still don't think it's a good thing for society. Dictatorship, even benevolent dictatorship, is not an appropriate way to control power.
For example, I'm not going to sue McDonalds because I stupidly pour hot coffee in my lap.
If they intentionally made the coffee so hot that it was undrinkable, I might.
Secondly, how does refusing to talk to someone who's basically "out to get you" (and who, from their previous writing, is pretty much guaranteed to misrepresent what you tell them anyway) acting against the interests of the company?
Well, first of all, they are refusing to talk to the entire company, not just that one reporter. And secondly, by not talking to someone you pretty much guarantee that the situation is only going to escalate.
TBH, I'd be more likely to invest in them now, since the CEO hasn't: sunk to their level (especially ZDNet's execrable "apology"), demanded the article be withdrawn, threatened legal action, de-listed the sites concerned or de-listed CNet, all of which he could easily have done.
CDNet has fought this out in the press. If Google did that, I'd appreciate it. As for all those other things, I agree they'd be worse, but I disagree that they'd be in any way "sinking to their level". While we're at it let's mention that Google's CEO didn't bomb the CDNet headquarters. Cause that would have been worse, too.
To me this proves Google's "provide impartial information" and "Do No Evil" morals are intact.
To me, the CEO is being unethical by fighting a personal fight using shareholder rights.
Mind you, your opinion appears to be (forgive me if I misrepresent) that you don't care about their ethics as long as they're making you money through your stocks...?
Not at all. I don't think what the CEO did was appropriate anyway. The fact that he did it with my money is just what gives me the right to bitch about it.
That's utterly irrelevant - are you seriously suggesting it doesn't matter what CNet does, Google should always be forced to pander to them?
What I'm saying is that what CNet did gave Google, the company, no reason not to talk to CNet. And I'm appalled, as a shareholder that the CEO would take a personal animosity like this and use our company to fight about it. If the CEO wants to cut off his nose to spite his face, that's his perogative, but cutting off my nose to spite his face isn't.
I'll talk to anyone, but that's my personal choice.
You aren't the CEO of a publically traded company, and he isn't just refusing to talk to CNet personally, he's ordering his employees not to do so either.
If Google was the government, or any other public body, you'd have a point - the government works for us, so it and its members fucking well should be answerable to us. Google is a company - it only has to answer to its owners and shareholders.
Read what I wrote above. I said that I was appalled as a shareholder.
Given this, why should you hold a private entity to higher standards than your own president, who actually owes you the right and consistently refuses to allow you it?
I shouldn't. But I should hold the CEO of a company I own to the same standards as my own president, at least with regard to this particular point.
However, the thing I object to about this is the invasion of privacy and blatant personal agenda.
I don't think it was an invasion of privacy. It was completely public information which was actually required to be disclosed by the government. If you don't think your address should be made public just because you contribute to a campaign (and I don't), you should look to Congress, and not CNet.
As for the "blatant personal agenda", the story was commentary. I don't have a problem with a story giving opinion, and if a story is going to do that it should be blatant about it.
CNet wrote a very biased article that basically held Google up as solely responsible for potential invasion of privacy - instead of, as it should, showing that this is just an inevitable consequence of the greater transparency of an information society.
Here's what I see as the gist of the story: "The fear, of course, is that hackers, zealous government investigators, or even a Google insider who falls short of the company's ethics standards could abuse that information." The story also mentions that "Privacy advocates say information collected at Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN, Amazon.com's A-9 and other search and e-commerce companies poses similar risks." But then it quotes Chris Hoofnagle from EPIC who says "Google is poised to trump Microsoft in its potential to invade privacy, and it's very hard for many consumers to get it because the Google brand name has so much trust"
I think the article was pretty much dead-on, and it said what I've been thinking for quite a while now. In fact, I've started to use Google less since they've come out with more features. I find their privacy policy to be inadequate in two ways: first, they don't include a data retention policy, and second, that they "share the information submitted under your account among all of our services in order to provide you with a seamless experience and to improve the quality of our services." And as a Google Adsense publisher, that information includes my social security number, bank account number, name, and address. Presumably they've tied all that information to what searches I do, they certainly haven't promised not to do so.
Funny thing - others have held this up as a good thing, since it (theoretically) ensures that Google continues to follow the vision of its founders, rather than being forced (post-IPO) to drop all ethics and morals and chase the almighty buck for its shareholders.
A good thing for society, maybe, but I was considering it as a shareholder.
TBH, it just sounds like someone's throwing a hissy-fit because they did inadequate research before investing. Buyer beware.
A hissy-fit? Not at all. I could sell today at a huge gain. I haven't even decided whether or not I'm going to sell now that I know this additional information. If you asked me before I found out about this move by the CEO, I would have said that I trust him to run the company in my best interests. But now I'm not so sure.
I'll probably hold on for a while and just keep a closer watch on these guys. I have faith in the greater fool theory.
Interestingly, the main reason I bought Google in the first place was what the CDNet story was all about. The company has incredibly powerful information at its fingertips, and information is one of the most undervalued aspects of a company, especially a tech company. Whether its GAAP or pro-forma, the value of information only appears on the books of a company when and if it is acquired.
I see a big difference between directly giving the information and merely linking to another site which has the information. Of course, I don't see anything wrong with giving out the information in the first place.
Like you really want Google's pages to be indexed in other search engines.
Not directly, but I'd certainly like to use the results in a smart way in some of my own projects.
Actually, CNet violated the canon of journalistic ethics.
I wasn't talking about what CNet did, I was talking about what Google did.
It showed that it was actually true.
Was there any reason to rattle off specific bits of personal information instead of simply saying "We were able to find his SSN, address and personal cell number"?
The only information involved which I'd consider personal was his address, and they didn't rattle it off, they linked to the page which had it. It probably would have been better to have linked to the google search they did to get the info, but then again, if they did that Google could have taken it down.
Or maybe he was being sarcastic when he said "The submitter's sarcasm detector looks like it's woefully inadequate," and it's your sarcasm detector that is screwed up.