7 ms·

Dear Eric, the proper response is I'm sorry

75 points by mattjung 17y ago

philk 17y ago
I get the feeling that Eric doesn't always remember he's in PR and that no prizes are awarded for arguing with the company's critics. He should really stick to simple, upbeat, sympathetic messages. To be honest I'm surprised he didn't learn that after his last privacy debacle.
- orblivion 17y ago
  The thing is, the last one wasn't even bad at all. I don't think he actually made the usual "if you're not doing anything bad what do you have to hide" argument, I think he said "if you have something you want to keep secret, maybe you shouldn't be on the Internet" which I agree about. Though I guess your point is about PR, and I guess I have to agree it could have been phrased more positively.
andybak 17y ago
He's not very good as the public face of Google, is he? Especially as his privacy blind spot corresponds to the one PR topic that has the ability to genuinely harm Google. I wonder why the geek-friendly faces of Sergey and Larry don't appear more often and why someone doesn't persuade Eric to stay in his lair, errr, office a bit more.
- jasonlotito 17y ago
  No, he's not a good public face is you are want to hear him tell you what you want to hear. He is an excellent public face if you want him to tell you want really went down. It's refreshing and encouraging. No company should have to play to the lowest common denominator.
  - raganwald 17y ago
    No company should have to play to the lowest common denominator. Well, if you boast that you have hundreds of millions or even a billion users... You might want to spend a lot of time thinking about the lowest common denominator.
    - jasonlotito 17y ago
      I understand what you mean, and why you say it. I do, however, disagree. From a pure business stand point, it makes sense. From a technological stand point, I think it hurts them. I'm having a hard time expressing this nicely, so I'll say it plainly as a I can. Hopefully no one takes offense. I don't want Google wasting time on things that are only there because people are dumb. I'd rather them spend time on things that help people get smarter, not allow them to remain ignorant. Again, this is a lot harsher than I intend, so hopefully you understand the meaning. My apologies in advance.
      - raganwald 17y ago
        I don't want Google wasting time on things that are only there because people are dumb. I'd rather them spend time on things that help people get smarter, not allow them to remain ignorant. I think we are in violent agreement on this principle. In the case of Buzz, I think they failed us both. I understand we shouldn't have to build software that throws up massive confirmation dialogs "Really, REALLY publish those public photos on Picasa of you mountain biking on a "sick day" to the following 12 frequently emailed people at your workplace including your boss and the dragon lady in HR?" But at the same time, making people smarter shouldn't mean making people figure out the non-obvious consequences of the choices you give them. I still can't figure out exactly how the original Buzz worked or didn't work... I think it boiled down to whether you created a profile, but I'm not sure and I'm not going to try it to find out. I hope Google find the middle ground and do a better job of designing software that has great user interfaces, software that makes its affordances visible without nannying or nagging users.
        jasonlotito 17y ago
        "Software that makes its affordances visible without nannying or nagging users." That's a difficult task, one which I think we'll be wrestling with for a long time.
dc2k08 17y ago
The level of outrage being directed at google over this seems to be far greater than that directed at facebook when they made a lot of their users' information public by default.
- dawson 17y ago
  I think people expect/ed better from Google
- philk 17y ago
  Two things: 1) When your company motto is "Don't be evil" people tend to hold you to a higher standard. 2) Facebook was a place where you'd put stuff that at least some other people would see. Google, particularly search, is a place where some of the things you'd type you wouldn't want anyone to see.
  - chaosprophet 17y ago
    Also, Facebook threw up a big window telling you to review the new settings, and it didn't allow you to do anything else on the site till you had checked the privacy settings.
    - jasonlotito 17y ago
      In other words: Facebook knew it's average user were less than intelligent, and they had to force them to accept the privacy settings. Google assumed it's average user cared about privacy, and so would investigate the matter themselves.
  - jasonlotito 17y ago
    1) Don't be evil doesn't mean don't make mistakes. Mistakes happen. 2) Despite the mistake, the features and protections were put in place to prevent the problems reported. His comment is right on the money. Maybe not what everyone wanted to hear, but what everyone wants to hear isn't always the truth.
    - 17y ago
Create 17y ago
bs. GOOG is business, not personal -- inherently no privacy. Along with the running-up fanfare of "privacy settings", GOOG knows exactly what it is doing. And the title just emphasizes cynicism: It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.
amix 17y ago
Eric Schmidt is painting a pretty grim picture, especially when considering his other views on privacy: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities." - Eric Schmidt
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- jasonlotito 17y ago
  You are twisting his words (or at least your comment makes it seem like you are). He doesn't suggest that you shouldn't do these things. Rather that the reality is these days, if you don't want people to find things out, the only guaranteed way of preventing that is by not doing it. This isn't his view on privacy; rather, it's his view on the state or privacy. Where it currently stands.
Silhouette 17y ago
Whenever privacy as a topic comes up in discussions on the forums I follow, a lot of people chime in with a fairly dismissive "no harm, no foul" kind of attitude. They don't mind the Eric Schmidts and Jonathan Schwartzes and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world proclaiming the death of privacy, because apparently no-one in the Facebook generation cares. It's odd how when something like this becomes public, when everyday, non-geek people actually appreciate the implications of what is going on, there never seems to be a shortage of people who care, and whatever Schmidt says there obviously are examples of real harm being done. I have been saying for a while that I think privacy and data protection will have to get worse before they get better. Right now, our societies are drifting into a situation where governments and megacorps can build databases for whatever purpose they want, because as long as that is all they are doing, the average guy in the street doesn't know or care. But as we are seeing increasingly frequently now, those databases are subject to both deliberate abuse and accidental compromise. There can be consequences for very large numbers of people and/or very serious consequences for some of those people. We need serious laws, with company-destroying penalties attached, to protect the privacy of individuals and regulate the collection of any kind of potentially sensitive, personally identifiable data in any database, and we need them before the frog is dead.
- forgotAgain 17y ago
  I agree with everything that you say except that if we let things get worse I believe it will be to late to make them better.
  - pingswept 17y ago
    If we fix the problems now, wouldn't it get better in 75 years or so, when all the currently surveilled people are dead? (Admittedly, that's still a terrible situation.)
  - Silhouette 17y ago
    There is a Pandora's box effect here, to be sure. I think the best we can hope for is for one or two really spectacular failures, by organisations on the scale of Google or Facebook, where the potential damage becomes obvious to everyone but because of the scale of the problem the plug gets pulled quickly before too much damage can be done. IMHO, this would be preferable to slowing building up lots of databases and having an endless stream of small-scale leaks, each of which is also damaging to those involved, but none of them big enough to make this a serious political issue.
rabidgnat 17y ago
If I had to guess, Eric Schmidt thinks he can't apologize. At this point, they've set a big precedent: they're willing to automatically network you based on information that you've given them. If they apologized, they'd have to neuter future roll-outs and remove this automatic user base, removing a major competitive advantage. How many other businesses have products that are popular enough to piggyback a social network? Not many. Google can, and they want to keep it that way.
protomyth 17y ago
At some point the extreme conclusion of what happened to the lady with the violent ex will happen. Once you pass a certain number of users you need to expect people using your service aren't that computer savvy and really aren't going to spend the time doing more than the bare minimum to use your service (e.g. check e-mail, post a picture for friends). After all, a lot of people are put on these services by their tech savvy children or siblings who spend the bare minimum of time setting up a todo list or basic tutoring on how to use this service for its basic purpose. It seems pretty much a bad idea to change the rules and not think of the implications to a more public revealing of data to world for these people. Particularly when you take what is generally regarded as a private service (e-mail) and turn it into a public service.

75 points by mattjung 17y ago

philk 17y ago

I get the feeling that Eric doesn't always remember he's in PR and that no prizes are awarded for arguing with the company's critics. He should really stick to simple, upbeat, sympathetic messages. To be honest I'm surprised he didn't learn that after his last privacy debacle.

orblivion 17y ago
The thing is, the last one wasn't even bad at all. I don't think he actually made the usual "if you're not doing anything bad what do you have to hide" argument, I think he said "if you have something you want to keep secret, maybe you shouldn't be on the Internet" which I agree about. Though I guess your point is about PR, and I guess I have to agree it could have been phrased more positively.

andybak 17y ago

He's not very good as the public face of Google, is he? Especially as his privacy blind spot corresponds to the one PR topic that has the ability to genuinely harm Google. I wonder why the geek-friendly faces of Sergey and Larry don't appear more often and why someone doesn't persuade Eric to stay in his lair, errr, office a bit more.

jasonlotito 17y ago
No, he's not a good public face is you are want to hear him tell you what you want to hear. He is an excellent public face if you want him to tell you want really went down. It's refreshing and encouraging. No company should have to play to the lowest common denominator.
- raganwald 17y ago
  No company should have to play to the lowest common denominator. Well, if you boast that you have hundreds of millions or even a billion users... You might want to spend a lot of time thinking about the lowest common denominator.
  - jasonlotito 17y ago
    I understand what you mean, and why you say it. I do, however, disagree. From a pure business stand point, it makes sense. From a technological stand point, I think it hurts them. I'm having a hard time expressing this nicely, so I'll say it plainly as a I can. Hopefully no one takes offense. I don't want Google wasting time on things that are only there because people are dumb. I'd rather them spend time on things that help people get smarter, not allow them to remain ignorant. Again, this is a lot harsher than I intend, so hopefully you understand the meaning. My apologies in advance.
    - raganwald 17y ago
      I don't want Google wasting time on things that are only there because people are dumb. I'd rather them spend time on things that help people get smarter, not allow them to remain ignorant. I think we are in violent agreement on this principle. In the case of Buzz, I think they failed us both. I understand we shouldn't have to build software that throws up massive confirmation dialogs "Really, REALLY publish those public photos on Picasa of you mountain biking on a "sick day" to the following 12 frequently emailed people at your workplace including your boss and the dragon lady in HR?" But at the same time, making people smarter shouldn't mean making people figure out the non-obvious consequences of the choices you give them. I still can't figure out exactly how the original Buzz worked or didn't work... I think it boiled down to whether you created a profile, but I'm not sure and I'm not going to try it to find out. I hope Google find the middle ground and do a better job of designing software that has great user interfaces, software that makes its affordances visible without nannying or nagging users.
      - jasonlotito 17y ago
        "Software that makes its affordances visible without nannying or nagging users." That's a difficult task, one which I think we'll be wrestling with for a long time.

dc2k08 17y ago

The level of outrage being directed at google over this seems to be far greater than that directed at facebook when they made a lot of their users' information public by default.

dawson 17y ago
I think people expect/ed better from Google
philk 17y ago
Two things: 1) When your company motto is "Don't be evil" people tend to hold you to a higher standard. 2) Facebook was a place where you'd put stuff that at least some other people would see. Google, particularly search, is a place where some of the things you'd type you wouldn't want anyone to see.
- chaosprophet 17y ago
  Also, Facebook threw up a big window telling you to review the new settings, and it didn't allow you to do anything else on the site till you had checked the privacy settings.
  - jasonlotito 17y ago
    In other words: Facebook knew it's average user were less than intelligent, and they had to force them to accept the privacy settings. Google assumed it's average user cared about privacy, and so would investigate the matter themselves.
- jasonlotito 17y ago
  1) Don't be evil doesn't mean don't make mistakes. Mistakes happen. 2) Despite the mistake, the features and protections were put in place to prevent the problems reported. His comment is right on the money. Maybe not what everyone wanted to hear, but what everyone wants to hear isn't always the truth.
  - 17y ago

Create 17y ago

bs. GOOG is business, not personal -- inherently no privacy. Along with the running-up fanfare of "privacy settings", GOOG knows exactly what it is doing. And the title just emphasizes cynicism: It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.

amix 17y ago

Eric Schmidt is painting a pretty grim picture, especially when considering his other views on privacy: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities." - Eric Schmidt

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
jasonlotito 17y ago
You are twisting his words (or at least your comment makes it seem like you are). He doesn't suggest that you shouldn't do these things. Rather that the reality is these days, if you don't want people to find things out, the only guaranteed way of preventing that is by not doing it. This isn't his view on privacy; rather, it's his view on the state or privacy. Where it currently stands.

Silhouette 17y ago

Whenever privacy as a topic comes up in discussions on the forums I follow, a lot of people chime in with a fairly dismissive "no harm, no foul" kind of attitude. They don't mind the Eric Schmidts and Jonathan Schwartzes and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world proclaiming the death of privacy, because apparently no-one in the Facebook generation cares. It's odd how when something like this becomes public, when everyday, non-geek people actually appreciate the implications of what is going on, there never seems to be a shortage of people who care, and whatever Schmidt says there obviously are examples of real harm being done. I have been saying for a while that I think privacy and data protection will have to get worse before they get better. Right now, our societies are drifting into a situation where governments and megacorps can build databases for whatever purpose they want, because as long as that is all they are doing, the average guy in the street doesn't know or care. But as we are seeing increasingly frequently now, those databases are subject to both deliberate abuse and accidental compromise. There can be consequences for very large numbers of people and/or very serious consequences for some of those people. We need serious laws, with company-destroying penalties attached, to protect the privacy of individuals and regulate the collection of any kind of potentially sensitive, personally identifiable data in any database, and we need them before the frog is dead.

forgotAgain 17y ago
I agree with everything that you say except that if we let things get worse I believe it will be to late to make them better.
- pingswept 17y ago
  If we fix the problems now, wouldn't it get better in 75 years or so, when all the currently surveilled people are dead? (Admittedly, that's still a terrible situation.)
- Silhouette 17y ago
  There is a Pandora's box effect here, to be sure. I think the best we can hope for is for one or two really spectacular failures, by organisations on the scale of Google or Facebook, where the potential damage becomes obvious to everyone but because of the scale of the problem the plug gets pulled quickly before too much damage can be done. IMHO, this would be preferable to slowing building up lots of databases and having an endless stream of small-scale leaks, each of which is also damaging to those involved, but none of them big enough to make this a serious political issue.

rabidgnat 17y ago

If I had to guess, Eric Schmidt thinks he can't apologize. At this point, they've set a big precedent: they're willing to automatically network you based on information that you've given them. If they apologized, they'd have to neuter future roll-outs and remove this automatic user base, removing a major competitive advantage. How many other businesses have products that are popular enough to piggyback a social network? Not many. Google can, and they want to keep it that way.

protomyth 17y ago

At some point the extreme conclusion of what happened to the lady with the violent ex will happen. Once you pass a certain number of users you need to expect people using your service aren't that computer savvy and really aren't going to spend the time doing more than the bare minimum to use your service (e.g. check e-mail, post a picture for friends). After all, a lot of people are put on these services by their tech savvy children or siblings who spend the bare minimum of time setting up a todo list or basic tutoring on how to use this service for its basic purpose. It seems pretty much a bad idea to change the rules and not think of the implications to a more public revealing of data to world for these people. Particularly when you take what is generally regarded as a private service (e-mail) and turn it into a public service.