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Daring Fireball: Creep Executive Officer

239 points by barredo 16y ago

bmalicoat 16y ago
Anyone who bought that "Don't be evil" could be a legitimate mission statement for one of the most powerful companies in the world is kidding themselves. Evil is quite relative, especially when billions of dollars are involved. Google (and Facebook) should be held to a higher standard since there has been no company in human history that knows (or has the potential to know) so much personal information.
- paulgb 16y ago
  I see "don't be evil" as Google signalling that they were playing a long-term strategy rather than short-term one. When that "motto" came about in the early 2000s, the web experience was crap because so many companies were trying to cash in for short-term gain. Instead, Google eschewed short-term profits to be in a better place down the road (and look where it got them verses, say, AltaVista). It's not that Google is benevolent per se, but that by concerning themselves with the long term, a nice side-effect is that users are happier.
- cageface 16y ago
  The speed with which people rush to discredit that slogan says more about the degree to which it threatens them than it does about Google's adherence to it, IMO. Also, Gruber attack-dogging Google? Shocking!
- 5teev 16y ago
  "Don't BE evil" isn't the same as "Don't DO evil."
sk_0919 16y ago
"Don't be evil" must be one of the biggest PR regrets of Google. Everything they do today is measured up to that
- nanairo 16y ago
  Sure, but they also gained a lot from it.
- sgman 16y ago
  http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html "Anyone can adopt "Don't be evil." The catch is that people will hold you to it."
theDoug 16y ago
I think the problem is that "Don't be evil" was mis-interpreted as a credo for Google when it was really a command and warning to its users.
- SMrF 16y ago
  It was originally created by Paul Buchheit. It's in point 6 of Google's corporate philosophy "You can make money without doing evil." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dont_be_evil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dont_be_evil Edit: I couldn't tell if you were making a joke or just misinformed.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - jmatt 16y ago
    news.arc owned your single quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
rayval 16y ago
Gruber misinterprets what Schmidt said. He was making a prediction, not a prescription, regarding future social behavior -- young people changing their name as they come of age. Ten years ago, would anyone have predicted that today we would be able to have online friendships with 1000 people whom we have never met (Facebook), know what they had for lunch (Twitter), see photos from their vacation (Flickr), know their exact location at this moment (Gowalla), what items they have just bought (Blippy), etc. None of this has anything to do with Google or how "creepy" Schmidt is. It seems to me a prescient forecast.
- nanairo 16y ago
  Maybe it's prescient if it came from you and me. But if it comes from the CEO of one of the companies that has never seem to care much about privacy it's another matter. They _can_ do thing, change them. It seems to me that Schmidt has not problem with such a future, and that's creepy. There is no reason why Twitter, Gowalla, and the rest could not have good privacy settings. But that would be horrible for Schmidt since he makes money from knowing what you like or what you may like (and you don't even know it yet).
- ible 16y ago
  He also takes the "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place." quote out of context, as so many did at the time. Schmidt was pointing out that the government can demand access to data about your searches, and that you need to be conscious of that and be careful. Between two misinterpretations and quoting a 'quip' to imply that google somehow things it should make all your decisions for you, it is a pretty shoddy post.
  - tiles 16y ago
    Truth. The full comment: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place, but 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. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities." If anything, he's saying, don't use Google for illegal searches. Seems like a valid argument and we can apply that to Schmidt's more recent comments too.
nanairo 16y ago
I think the point about Google vs. government and who should have our private information is one of the crucial points. Google is a company and there's very little that we (the citizens) can do against it. Every citizen holds a vote for the government, but only the shareholders have any vote about Google.
- sosuke 16y ago
  I spoke about this just the other night, supposedly a company wants to implement a city wide retina scan system for criminals and for opt-in people it would act as a payment gateway. We both agreed that a company that isn't controlled in some way by the people should not have that information because they can't properly be held accountable through due process. The government having that information isn't much better at all but if you have to choose between the lesser of two evils I'd pick the government.
- moultano 16y ago
  You can't escape from the government. You _can_ abstain from google's products.
  - tswicegood 16y ago
    I don't think this is a fair point as most people who are engaged in anything online don't have the technical wherewithal to correctly abstain. How many people do you know who are not directly involved in tech that would even begin to fathom what you meant if you told them to "add a 127.0.0.1 alias to your /etc/hosts file"? Breaking it down further, how many would know what "127.0.0.1" meant, or even what "/etc/hosts" was?
    - moultano 16y ago
      They don't have to. If enough people wanted it, anyone one of us on this forum could build a "Google blocker" that would effectively remove google from the user's life and give it away or sell it.
  - nanairo 16y ago
gamble 16y ago
There's definitely some truth to this, but it has more than a hint of the old trope that "the king is virtuous, but misled by wicked advisors". If Larry and Sergey have a problem with Google's actions or Schmidt's channeling of Larry Ellison in interviews, no one is in a better place to know or do something about it.
- gruseom 16y ago
  the old trope that "the king is virtuous, but misled by wicked advisors" That's very well put and I recognize the pattern, but never thought of it this way before. Is this something you figured out from observation, or did you learn it from some source (and if so, what)?
oldgregg 16y ago
He's not creepy, just honest. He knows in the future what we call "privacy" won't exist anymore. Every new innovation gets regulated by the government so that politicians get their cut. Right now we're seeing them redefine "privacy" to mean privacy from anyone other than this corporate/government partnership knowing everything about you. This is what he's talking about -- and it IS inevitable. Here's the real privacy question: will you be able to keep other PEOPLE from knowing everything about you? I've contributed recently to speakerwiki.org -- they are building a massive database of every public/tech/motivational speaker in the world. Rated and Ranked. So what happens when everyone has a Yelp profile that they don't control? Or do corporate/political interests prevent this from ever happening to control their monopoly on data? To me that's the real privacy question for the next 5-10 years. On second thought, he is pretty creepy.
- TotlolRon 16y ago
  > He's not creepy, just honest. Maybe he is creepy AND honest? Possible?
  - tbrownaw 16y ago
    Possible, but if being honest is considered creepy these days it probably means something very bad about our society.
    - nanairo 16y ago
      I find it a bit creepy, because he (or to be exact Google) is one of the people driving us in that direction. If you were on a ship, and the captain told you: "It's hard, but at these rate we'll probably go straight into the storm", and then he turns and does nothing about it, or keeps going... I'd find it a bit creepy. But that's very much a personal opinion. I agree it's not a fair adjective (as in it's too heavy) to use for what we are talking about.
      - wvenable 16y ago
        I think we'd be heading in that direction with or without Google. The technology exists, it will be used.
grandalf 16y ago
The more I read about Schmidt the more I think he's soon to be replaced by Larry or Sergey as CEO. The guy has a knack for putting his foot in his mouth in interviews, and he's been publicly identified as the guy who wanted to stay in China, wanted to abandon Net Neutrality, and who made a few gaffes in reference to the captured wifi network info, etc. Schmidt is also the face of Google in Washington DC, and has led the Company's efforts to innovate via legislation. He is also very tight with the Obama campaign and campaigned overtly, which is not (in my opinion) an appropriate thing for a CEO to do. In a lot of ways, his instincts clash with the values that Larry and Sergey seem to be trying very hard to perserve... My prediction is one more gaffe, particularly one accompanied by a stock price dip and he's out.
- nanairo 16y ago
  If you were a shareholder, would you rather want your company to be controlled by a shark, who pursue profits vigourosly at the cost of the occasional PR failure (that doesn't really seem to affect them in any real term). Or would you want it to be controlled by two geeks that started their company with the motto: "Don't be evil" and would put (I imagine) ethics before profit?
  - mcantelon 16y ago
    Not all shareholders are eager to sacrifice values and principles to maximize returns.
    - nanairo 16y ago
      Sure. But there's enough people who would gladly pay the current price _and_ sacrifice values that I doubt any choice by the "ethical" people would make much of a dent in their share price.
  - irons 16y ago
    It's a mistake (though a common one, and almost an American truism) to equate "being a shareholder" with "fixated on next quarter's earnings above all other factors". There are other standards of behavior, even if you still profess an interest only in money, especially if you still want your company to be thriving in a decade.
gnufied 16y ago
From the article Gruber quotes : >Fortune magazine recently called Google a "cash cow" and suggested more attention be paid to milking it rather than running off in search of the next big thing. I think any creator worth his salt would hate this line of thinking. The premise that since Google is sitting on pile of Cash and should pay large of chunks it as dividends rather than spending it on "next big thing" is ridiculous. Apple hasn't paid cash dividend since 1995 (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics). Well it was so steeped in bad journalism, I couldn't finish it. Coming to Gruber's article, first - why get personal? And none can deny that Google (or Facebook) wield tremendous power by keeping so much of personal data, but seriously what alternatives he proposes? I can't go back to stone age. Anyone who asks Google, "oh-but you keep so much of our data?" is basically asking a rhetorical question. Personally, I am not afraid. If Mr. Gruber got better ideas if not 'internet', I am all ears.
- kareemm 16y ago
  > And none can deny that Google (or Facebook) wield tremendous power by keeping so much of personal data, but seriously what alternatives he proposes? Um, delete the data instead of keeping it?
  - gnufied 16y ago
    Like delete my mails and contacts?
    - irons 16y ago
      No, not like that.
- nanairo 16y ago
  Seriously? Look, people several time came up with alternatives. EU gov: "erase your data after 6 months" Google (after a lot of opposition): "fine, we'll erase them after 2 years" Everyone: "you can't just make me use buzz without me having a say" Schmidt (and I am paraphrasing): "Geez, users are stupid!" The reason why Schmidt sees no alternatives is because he doesn't want to look for alternatives. They are there. But as the guy with the biggest vault he has all to lose.
credo 16y ago
I think that many of Schmidt's comments might be unnecessarily frank (from Google's perspective). I'm glad he is making these comments because it helps more people understand the privacy issues that they're dealing with. So to that extent, I applaud Schmidt though I'm not sure why he is making all of these comments.It seems like his honesty/candidness (or is it arrogance) is hurting Google.
chaostheory 16y ago
[Schmidt] predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites. I'm going to propose something more specific if you want online anonymity. Change your name (or keep this in mind for your future child), both first and last, to something pretty common that suits your taste. When people google you, they'll get so many results of different people with the same name that you'll have anonymity through numbers. Here is something to help you out, though I'm not sure how good of a tool it is: http://namestatistics.com/ http://namestatistics.com/ Whenever I google my name, I can never find myself having to sift through hundreds of different people with the same first and last name.
- nanairo 16y ago
  Good point. Though name is only one of many attributes we have. You should also take a common job (how do you feel about being a waiter?), keep a common wardrobe, live in a big city, drive an average car, and watch/read average stuff. Oh yeah, you probably want to ask a surgeon to give you an average face. Then you'll be anonymous... and you'll also have one of the most boring lives you could imagine. Sorry, there's an alternative. Corporations are not above the law: if the citizens decide that certain stuff is illegal, then it becomes so. Full stop. I realise many americans (and other people) hate any type of regulation, but this is exactly what they are for. You don't need to wonder how to stop bribes. You don't say: "Well, this is the way the world is going and we can't do nothing about it". You make a law against it, and then the police will do their best. Will it solve the problem? No, but it would definitely help.
  - chaostheory 16y ago
    I don't think my profession is very common, nor the school that I went to, or even any of my other details. I still have a hard time finding myself.
    - nanairo 16y ago
      Yes, but we are talking of the future. The fact that we can't do it in the present is not being challenged by anyone. The point is Schmidt's prediction that in the future we will.
gojomo 16y ago
David Brin, author of The Transparent Society [1], should do a 1-hour sit-down interview with Eric Schmidt. I'm sure it'd generate dozens of scary-but-true quotes for the blogosphere and social-news sites to wring their hands over. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society
ashishbharthi 16y ago
At least now Gruber believes that Android is cool!
SkyMarshal 16y ago
"[Schmidt] predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites." Or maybe people will just adapt, as people tend to do, and learn to more actively manage their online identities, and selectively upload and monitor information about themselves and their friends online. Or maybe some intrepid hackers will see this as a problem and solve it with some technology that puts control of our own data directly in our hands, perhaps One Social Web or Diaspora. Schmidt's prediction doesn't make him sound creepy to me. It makes him sound like a dinosaur. I can't imagine a more kludgey, un-Google-like solution to this problem than people changing their names when they reach 'adulthood', whenever that is (18? 21? 25? 29? 30? 35?). Especially with rapidly advancing facial recognition technology and information theory, changing your name will do exactly nothing for you in this regard. Rather I would expect the CEO of Google, the company that seemed to popularize finding clever technical solutions to every problem, to have predicted something more along those lines. What's going on guys? Edit: now that I reread this, it strikes me that maybe Schmidt didn't put much thought into this prediction and didn't much care to. He's just using an outlandish idea to draw attention to an interesting social problem. Who knows.
- hugh3 16y ago
  Incidentally, I think that the best gift you can give your child is a non-unique name. The ability to disappear into a crowd of identically-named folks when someone searches for your name is priceless.
mcantelon 16y ago
It's hard to take Gruber seriously because of his bias towards Apple. Gruber is concerned about things Schmidt says, yet not about what Apple does, i.e. creating a device that logs everything you type, takes pictures of you without you knowing it, etc. http://bit.ly/9Gox6U http://bit.ly/9Gox6U
- Anechoic 16y ago
  creating a device that logs everything you type, takes pictures of you without you knowing it The article you linked to supports neither of those accusations.
  - mcantelon 16y ago
    Claim: "logs everything you type" Article: "The keyboard cache logs everything that you type in to learn autocorrect ... someone with know-how could recover months of typing in the order in which it was typed" Claim: "takes pictures of you without you knowing it" Article: "...the phone itself automatically shoots and stores hundreds of such images as people close out one application to use another." Article: "Every time an iPhone user closes out of the built-in mapping application, the phone snaps a screenshot and stores it"
    - Anechoic 16y ago
      1 for 2: I missed the part about the keyboard cache (although unless the cache organizes the data in their original sentence structure, I don't see how useful it would be). However, taking screenshots /= "takes pictures of you"
      - mcantelon 16y ago
        You're right... I misread that (although secretly taking screenshots is also creepy).
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
madair 16y ago
This is quite a strong personal attack to make on someone, even a public figure. Creepy is not an objective word, making this article by definition Ad Hominem.
Herring 16y ago
>Recall, for example, this comment of Schmidt’s from 2009, regarding Google and privacy: "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place." It's ironic that Schmidt's quote is taken completely out of context, & will follow him around for years if not decades to come. Maybe he should change his name.
- rue 16y ago
  Can you cite the context?
  - atuladhar 16y ago
    Someone did, above: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1621594 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1621594
- kjksf 16y ago
  It's not ironic, it's sad. It's sad that "press" or bloggers like Gruber either can't read or go for sensationalist angle and crucify someone based on benign remarks taken out of context. It's sad that supposedly intelligent audience like HN falls for it and instead of ignoring it altogether or discussing when Gruber became full of shit, we're actually discussing his post as if what he wrote actually had merit. But that's not Schmidt's fault. It's all on Gruber. What is ironic is that you actually said the thing that Schmidt didn't. Per Gruber that makes you a creep.
rsingel 16y ago
Grube
rickmb 16y ago
Regardless of how you feel about Schmidt, or to what extent his comments have been taken out of context, the guy consistently draws the wrong kind of media attention to himself and Google. "Creep Executive Officer" describes exactly the kind of image he creates, and it is damaging Google.
rsingel 16y ago
Gruber loses it on the facts here. <em>On the other, the Schmidt Google that, in its efforts to serve ads as efficiently as possible, no longer seems concerned with the traditional Western concept of personal privacy.</em> For search ads, nothing matters except your query. It's just contextual -- it doesn't matter who you are, what you've searched on before or if you have a Gmail account. Now, with Adsense and DoubleClick, Google is starting to play with using more about what it knows about you, but so far, the system only uses traditional third-party tracking cookies AND some data about what you do on YouTube. There's substantial pressure inside the company to break down this wall further (see the recent WSJ article on the leaked docusments), but right now, it's hard to see where Google is "no longer concerned with the traditional Western notion of personal privacy." Other than that, it's a great troll on Gruber's part.
naner 16y ago
but at least our government answers to its citizens through elections. Haha. I agree with him that Schmidt is out of touch but still I trust Google's discretion over that of Congress. If Google missteps everyone cries bloody-murder and it can affect their profits and future projects. Congress systematically abuses power and profits from it. It is a matter of incentives and culture.
palish 16y ago
[Schmidt] predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites. Does this really seem so hard to believe? I'm one of the developers for a certain popular online video game. One time, I posted my personal email to the game's forums... it was along the lines of "If you happen to reproduce [certain really hard to reproduce problem], please type [console command] and send the results to [email address]". That kind of thing. Well, one of the fans managed to trace my name -> my email -> my Hacker News profile -> my hacker news comments, then started copy-pasting random things I had written from HN to the game's IRC channel. I didn't really mind... it was just very weird. But what if I were in an alternate reality, and I had said some really insane things on my HN account, like, say, C/C++ really isn't that terrible? You know, something absolutely crazy. Then an employer traced my name -> my email -> my Hacker News profile -> my insane comments. Now a potential employer has another data point about whether to hire me, one that I didn't necessarily want him to have. So I can see why it would potentially it would potentially be very useful to have a mechanism to very easily legally change your name. I've never looked into how to do that, since I have no reason to, but I assume it's probably difficult, or doesn't catch everything, or causes you headaches down the road, etc.
kmfrk 16y ago
My main gripe with Schmidt (in the way he is presented in the interview[^1]) is how casual he is about all the problems. You almost hear Steve Jobs's voice: "Change your name. Not that big of a deal". I don't know what goes on in Schmidt's head, and maybe he is as upset about the predicament of today's youth with the vociferous cornucopia of information most people leave behind. Maybe he has come to terms with these reservations at some point, which is why we hear no lament, no reprehensions, no fear and expressed personal(!) feelings. Nevertheless, he comes across as creepy because of this, be it as an automaton, a corporate CEO, or someone who knows that he at the very least wields the key to the cogs and gears of most of the information-aggregating monster - keeping himself out of harm's way. I don't get a single vibe from him signalling that he finds the development troubling and at the very least wants to try to ameliorate the situation and development - as a private person and a corporate entity with a lot of influence. He seems to be welcoming the development. At the very least, if he has an moral fibre of independence, he is accepting it, and if he's indifferent, he's acquiescent. The last person who casually declared privacy dead was Mark Zuckerberg. Go figure. [1]: I want to emphasize this, because the structure of the article leaves no wiggle room for context and elaboration, which leaves Schmidt with the benefit of the doubt. And so I do. But Google is doing a [expletive] job at managing, building and recovering PR and brand value at the moment. And the mindset construed from the article lends itself to the recent hubbub of Google's moral qualms of how far they should go to monetize and foster more ad revenue.
GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
The problem I have with google is their collection of data. The government needs to control this. See when it comes to Facebook/twitter only what I WANT to become public, is public. I mean I only post on facebook/twitter what I want the world to see. Lets assume everything is public. While with google I am betting they can know where I live without any sort of geolocation gps or any other technology, because they will know what I search for, where I go (directions on google maps), when I go where I go, where I work, etc. I am betting they can recite my life better than I remember it. That I have a problem with. And pretty much everything I do online feeds google. And this applies to many online companies, google just does it better. The days of "lets not be evil, lets be awesome" are easily replaced by "lets make money!"
- hugh3 16y ago
  While with google I am betting they can know where I live without any sort of geolocation gps or any other technology, because they will know what I search for, where I go (directions on google maps), when I go where I go, where I work, etc. I am betting they can recite my life better than I remember it. If you don't want 'em to know that kind of information, then don't give it to 'em. Don't use google for search, don't use google for maps, don't use google for mail. Alternatively you can hide most of your identity with careful cookie management, or by using the "Incognito" feature in Chrome, which is made by... aw crap. Personally I don't bother to hide my actions from google since I never tell them anything interesting enough to catch anyone's attention, but I could if I wanted to.
  - lotharbot 16y ago
    > If you don't want 'em to know that kind of information, then don't give it to 'em. Exactly. It's not like google is breaking into your home, holding you at gunpoint, and forcing you to type your personal and private information. Instead, people are using a network designed for information sharing, putting their information on that network, and then acting surprised when somebody aggregates it. If you don't want google having your private data, quit putting your private data into google software or onto the public internet. They don't know anything you (or your acquaintances) don't either tell them directly or say in public.
pclark 16y ago
I'm really curious on who is more naieve about the Google "don't be evil statement" the founders for thinking a public company could be like this, or the public for believing it.
mjterave 16y ago
Another contentless post from Gruber. Seriously, why does anybody want to support this asshole by linking to his posts? He's a whiny apple shill.
mcantelon 16y ago
>at least our government answers to its citizens through elections. It answers to lobbyists, actually.
guelo 16y ago
Good ol' ad hominem, it always seems to do the trick. Creepy, I guess that's better than some other things you could be called.
woodall 16y ago
" We are moving to a Google that knows more about you." Google CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking to financial analysts, February 9, 2005, as quoted in the New York Times the next day http://www.scroogle.org/ http://www.scroogle.org/ Scroogle is nice because it lets you search without logging a cookie, IP, ect. Google logs a lot about you every time you search. Even if you are not doing something "illegal" you should still be worried. Think of the bigger picture; opsec.
random42 16y ago
Nowadays, there is no difference in online/real privacy. If I would not want to tell anyone/anything in real life, I would/should rather leave digital footprints of it on the internet either.
ramanujan 16y ago
Did Gruber float this at Steve Jobs' behest? Great anti-Google talking point, till you realize that Apple has quite a bit of data on you too with iTunes Genius (and will get more with iAds and their new cloud center). [In this particular case motives are of relevance]

239 points by barredo 16y ago

Anyone who bought that "Don't be evil" could be a legitimate mission statement for one of the most powerful companies in the world is kidding themselves. Evil is quite relative, especially when billions of dollars are involved. Google (and Facebook) should be held to a higher standard since there has been no company in human history that knows (or has the potential to know) so much personal information.

paulgb 16y ago
I see "don't be evil" as Google signalling that they were playing a long-term strategy rather than short-term one. When that "motto" came about in the early 2000s, the web experience was crap because so many companies were trying to cash in for short-term gain. Instead, Google eschewed short-term profits to be in a better place down the road (and look where it got them verses, say, AltaVista). It's not that Google is benevolent per se, but that by concerning themselves with the long term, a nice side-effect is that users are happier.
cageface 16y ago
The speed with which people rush to discredit that slogan says more about the degree to which it threatens them than it does about Google's adherence to it, IMO. Also, Gruber attack-dogging Google? Shocking!
5teev 16y ago
"Don't BE evil" isn't the same as "Don't DO evil."

sk_0919 16y ago

"Don't be evil" must be one of the biggest PR regrets of Google. Everything they do today is measured up to that

nanairo 16y ago
Sure, but they also gained a lot from it.
sgman 16y ago
http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html "Anyone can adopt "Don't be evil." The catch is that people will hold you to it."

theDoug 16y ago

I think the problem is that "Don't be evil" was mis-interpreted as a credo for Google when it was really a command and warning to its users.

SMrF 16y ago
It was originally created by Paul Buchheit. It's in point 6 of Google's corporate philosophy "You can make money without doing evil." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dont_be_evil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dont_be_evil Edit: I couldn't tell if you were making a joke or just misinformed.
- deleted 16y ago
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- jmatt 16y ago
  news.arc owned your single quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

rayval 16y ago

Gruber misinterprets what Schmidt said. He was making a prediction, not a prescription, regarding future social behavior -- young people changing their name as they come of age. Ten years ago, would anyone have predicted that today we would be able to have online friendships with 1000 people whom we have never met (Facebook), know what they had for lunch (Twitter), see photos from their vacation (Flickr), know their exact location at this moment (Gowalla), what items they have just bought (Blippy), etc. None of this has anything to do with Google or how "creepy" Schmidt is. It seems to me a prescient forecast.

nanairo 16y ago
Maybe it's prescient if it came from you and me. But if it comes from the CEO of one of the companies that has never seem to care much about privacy it's another matter. They _can_ do thing, change them. It seems to me that Schmidt has not problem with such a future, and that's creepy. There is no reason why Twitter, Gowalla, and the rest could not have good privacy settings. But that would be horrible for Schmidt since he makes money from knowing what you like or what you may like (and you don't even know it yet).
ible 16y ago
He also takes the "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place." quote out of context, as so many did at the time. Schmidt was pointing out that the government can demand access to data about your searches, and that you need to be conscious of that and be careful. Between two misinterpretations and quoting a 'quip' to imply that google somehow things it should make all your decisions for you, it is a pretty shoddy post.
- tiles 16y ago
  Truth. The full comment: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place, but 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. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities." If anything, he's saying, don't use Google for illegal searches. Seems like a valid argument and we can apply that to Schmidt's more recent comments too.

nanairo 16y ago

I think the point about Google vs. government and who should have our private information is one of the crucial points. Google is a company and there's very little that we (the citizens) can do against it. Every citizen holds a vote for the government, but only the shareholders have any vote about Google.

sosuke 16y ago
I spoke about this just the other night, supposedly a company wants to implement a city wide retina scan system for criminals and for opt-in people it would act as a payment gateway. We both agreed that a company that isn't controlled in some way by the people should not have that information because they can't properly be held accountable through due process. The government having that information isn't much better at all but if you have to choose between the lesser of two evils I'd pick the government.
moultano 16y ago
You can't escape from the government. You _can_ abstain from google's products.
- tswicegood 16y ago
  I don't think this is a fair point as most people who are engaged in anything online don't have the technical wherewithal to correctly abstain. How many people do you know who are not directly involved in tech that would even begin to fathom what you meant if you told them to "add a 127.0.0.1 alias to your /etc/hosts file"? Breaking it down further, how many would know what "127.0.0.1" meant, or even what "/etc/hosts" was?
  - moultano 16y ago
    They don't have to. If enough people wanted it, anyone one of us on this forum could build a "Google blocker" that would effectively remove google from the user's life and give it away or sell it.
- nanairo 16y ago

gamble 16y ago

There's definitely some truth to this, but it has more than a hint of the old trope that "the king is virtuous, but misled by wicked advisors". If Larry and Sergey have a problem with Google's actions or Schmidt's channeling of Larry Ellison in interviews, no one is in a better place to know or do something about it.

gruseom 16y ago
the old trope that "the king is virtuous, but misled by wicked advisors" That's very well put and I recognize the pattern, but never thought of it this way before. Is this something you figured out from observation, or did you learn it from some source (and if so, what)?

oldgregg 16y ago

He's not creepy, just honest. He knows in the future what we call "privacy" won't exist anymore. Every new innovation gets regulated by the government so that politicians get their cut. Right now we're seeing them redefine "privacy" to mean privacy from anyone other than this corporate/government partnership knowing everything about you. This is what he's talking about -- and it IS inevitable. Here's the real privacy question: will you be able to keep other PEOPLE from knowing everything about you? I've contributed recently to speakerwiki.org -- they are building a massive database of every public/tech/motivational speaker in the world. Rated and Ranked. So what happens when everyone has a Yelp profile that they don't control? Or do corporate/political interests prevent this from ever happening to control their monopoly on data? To me that's the real privacy question for the next 5-10 years. On second thought, he is pretty creepy.

TotlolRon 16y ago
> He's not creepy, just honest. Maybe he is creepy AND honest? Possible?
- tbrownaw 16y ago
  Possible, but if being honest is considered creepy these days it probably means something very bad about our society.
  - nanairo 16y ago
    I find it a bit creepy, because he (or to be exact Google) is one of the people driving us in that direction. If you were on a ship, and the captain told you: "It's hard, but at these rate we'll probably go straight into the storm", and then he turns and does nothing about it, or keeps going... I'd find it a bit creepy. But that's very much a personal opinion. I agree it's not a fair adjective (as in it's too heavy) to use for what we are talking about.
    - wvenable 16y ago
      I think we'd be heading in that direction with or without Google. The technology exists, it will be used.

grandalf 16y ago

The more I read about Schmidt the more I think he's soon to be replaced by Larry or Sergey as CEO. The guy has a knack for putting his foot in his mouth in interviews, and he's been publicly identified as the guy who wanted to stay in China, wanted to abandon Net Neutrality, and who made a few gaffes in reference to the captured wifi network info, etc. Schmidt is also the face of Google in Washington DC, and has led the Company's efforts to innovate via legislation. He is also very tight with the Obama campaign and campaigned overtly, which is not (in my opinion) an appropriate thing for a CEO to do. In a lot of ways, his instincts clash with the values that Larry and Sergey seem to be trying very hard to perserve... My prediction is one more gaffe, particularly one accompanied by a stock price dip and he's out.

nanairo 16y ago
If you were a shareholder, would you rather want your company to be controlled by a shark, who pursue profits vigourosly at the cost of the occasional PR failure (that doesn't really seem to affect them in any real term). Or would you want it to be controlled by two geeks that started their company with the motto: "Don't be evil" and would put (I imagine) ethics before profit?
- mcantelon 16y ago
  Not all shareholders are eager to sacrifice values and principles to maximize returns.
  - nanairo 16y ago
    Sure. But there's enough people who would gladly pay the current price _and_ sacrifice values that I doubt any choice by the "ethical" people would make much of a dent in their share price.
- irons 16y ago
  It's a mistake (though a common one, and almost an American truism) to equate "being a shareholder" with "fixated on next quarter's earnings above all other factors". There are other standards of behavior, even if you still profess an interest only in money, especially if you still want your company to be thriving in a decade.

gnufied 16y ago

From the article Gruber quotes : >Fortune magazine recently called Google a "cash cow" and suggested more attention be paid to milking it rather than running off in search of the next big thing. I think any creator worth his salt would hate this line of thinking. The premise that since Google is sitting on pile of Cash and should pay large of chunks it as dividends rather than spending it on "next big thing" is ridiculous. Apple hasn't paid cash dividend since 1995 (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics). Well it was so steeped in bad journalism, I couldn't finish it. Coming to Gruber's article, first - why get personal? And none can deny that Google (or Facebook) wield tremendous power by keeping so much of personal data, but seriously what alternatives he proposes? I can't go back to stone age. Anyone who asks Google, "oh-but you keep so much of our data?" is basically asking a rhetorical question. Personally, I am not afraid. If Mr. Gruber got better ideas if not 'internet', I am all ears.

kareemm 16y ago
> And none can deny that Google (or Facebook) wield tremendous power by keeping so much of personal data, but seriously what alternatives he proposes? Um, delete the data instead of keeping it?
- gnufied 16y ago
  Like delete my mails and contacts?
  - irons 16y ago
    No, not like that.
nanairo 16y ago
Seriously? Look, people several time came up with alternatives. EU gov: "erase your data after 6 months" Google (after a lot of opposition): "fine, we'll erase them after 2 years" Everyone: "you can't just make me use buzz without me having a say" Schmidt (and I am paraphrasing): "Geez, users are stupid!" The reason why Schmidt sees no alternatives is because he doesn't want to look for alternatives. They are there. But as the guy with the biggest vault he has all to lose.

credo 16y ago

I think that many of Schmidt's comments might be unnecessarily frank (from Google's perspective). I'm glad he is making these comments because it helps more people understand the privacy issues that they're dealing with. So to that extent, I applaud Schmidt though I'm not sure why he is making all of these comments.It seems like his honesty/candidness (or is it arrogance) is hurting Google.

chaostheory 16y ago

[Schmidt] predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites. I'm going to propose something more specific if you want online anonymity. Change your name (or keep this in mind for your future child), both first and last, to something pretty common that suits your taste. When people google you, they'll get so many results of different people with the same name that you'll have anonymity through numbers. Here is something to help you out, though I'm not sure how good of a tool it is: http://namestatistics.com/ http://namestatistics.com/ Whenever I google my name, I can never find myself having to sift through hundreds of different people with the same first and last name.

nanairo 16y ago
Good point. Though name is only one of many attributes we have. You should also take a common job (how do you feel about being a waiter?), keep a common wardrobe, live in a big city, drive an average car, and watch/read average stuff. Oh yeah, you probably want to ask a surgeon to give you an average face. Then you'll be anonymous... and you'll also have one of the most boring lives you could imagine. Sorry, there's an alternative. Corporations are not above the law: if the citizens decide that certain stuff is illegal, then it becomes so. Full stop. I realise many americans (and other people) hate any type of regulation, but this is exactly what they are for. You don't need to wonder how to stop bribes. You don't say: "Well, this is the way the world is going and we can't do nothing about it". You make a law against it, and then the police will do their best. Will it solve the problem? No, but it would definitely help.
- chaostheory 16y ago
  I don't think my profession is very common, nor the school that I went to, or even any of my other details. I still have a hard time finding myself.
  - nanairo 16y ago
    Yes, but we are talking of the future. The fact that we can't do it in the present is not being challenged by anyone. The point is Schmidt's prediction that in the future we will.

gojomo 16y ago

David Brin, author of The Transparent Society [1], should do a 1-hour sit-down interview with Eric Schmidt. I'm sure it'd generate dozens of scary-but-true quotes for the blogosphere and social-news sites to wring their hands over. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society

ashishbharthi 16y ago

At least now Gruber believes that Android is cool!

SkyMarshal 16y ago

"[Schmidt] predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites." Or maybe people will just adapt, as people tend to do, and learn to more actively manage their online identities, and selectively upload and monitor information about themselves and their friends online. Or maybe some intrepid hackers will see this as a problem and solve it with some technology that puts control of our own data directly in our hands, perhaps One Social Web or Diaspora. Schmidt's prediction doesn't make him sound creepy to me. It makes him sound like a dinosaur. I can't imagine a more kludgey, un-Google-like solution to this problem than people changing their names when they reach 'adulthood', whenever that is (18? 21? 25? 29? 30? 35?). Especially with rapidly advancing facial recognition technology and information theory, changing your name will do exactly nothing for you in this regard. Rather I would expect the CEO of Google, the company that seemed to popularize finding clever technical solutions to every problem, to have predicted something more along those lines. What's going on guys? Edit: now that I reread this, it strikes me that maybe Schmidt didn't put much thought into this prediction and didn't much care to. He's just using an outlandish idea to draw attention to an interesting social problem. Who knows.

hugh3 16y ago
Incidentally, I think that the best gift you can give your child is a non-unique name. The ability to disappear into a crowd of identically-named folks when someone searches for your name is priceless.

mcantelon 16y ago

It's hard to take Gruber seriously because of his bias towards Apple. Gruber is concerned about things Schmidt says, yet not about what Apple does, i.e. creating a device that logs everything you type, takes pictures of you without you knowing it, etc. http://bit.ly/9Gox6U http://bit.ly/9Gox6U

Anechoic 16y ago
creating a device that logs everything you type, takes pictures of you without you knowing it The article you linked to supports neither of those accusations.
- mcantelon 16y ago
  Claim: "logs everything you type" Article: "The keyboard cache logs everything that you type in to learn autocorrect ... someone with know-how could recover months of typing in the order in which it was typed" Claim: "takes pictures of you without you knowing it" Article: "...the phone itself automatically shoots and stores hundreds of such images as people close out one application to use another." Article: "Every time an iPhone user closes out of the built-in mapping application, the phone snaps a screenshot and stores it"
  - Anechoic 16y ago
    1 for 2: I missed the part about the keyboard cache (although unless the cache organizes the data in their original sentence structure, I don't see how useful it would be). However, taking screenshots /= "takes pictures of you"
    - mcantelon 16y ago
      You're right... I misread that (although secretly taking screenshots is also creepy).
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

madair 16y ago

This is quite a strong personal attack to make on someone, even a public figure. Creepy is not an objective word, making this article by definition Ad Hominem.

Herring 16y ago

>Recall, for example, this comment of Schmidt’s from 2009, regarding Google and privacy: "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place." It's ironic that Schmidt's quote is taken completely out of context, & will follow him around for years if not decades to come. Maybe he should change his name.

rue 16y ago
Can you cite the context?
- atuladhar 16y ago
  Someone did, above: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1621594 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1621594
kjksf 16y ago
It's not ironic, it's sad. It's sad that "press" or bloggers like Gruber either can't read or go for sensationalist angle and crucify someone based on benign remarks taken out of context. It's sad that supposedly intelligent audience like HN falls for it and instead of ignoring it altogether or discussing when Gruber became full of shit, we're actually discussing his post as if what he wrote actually had merit. But that's not Schmidt's fault. It's all on Gruber. What is ironic is that you actually said the thing that Schmidt didn't. Per Gruber that makes you a creep.

rsingel 16y ago

Grube

rickmb 16y ago

Regardless of how you feel about Schmidt, or to what extent his comments have been taken out of context, the guy consistently draws the wrong kind of media attention to himself and Google. "Creep Executive Officer" describes exactly the kind of image he creates, and it is damaging Google.

rsingel 16y ago

Gruber loses it on the facts here. <em>On the other, the Schmidt Google that, in its efforts to serve ads as efficiently as possible, no longer seems concerned with the traditional Western concept of personal privacy.</em> For search ads, nothing matters except your query. It's just contextual -- it doesn't matter who you are, what you've searched on before or if you have a Gmail account. Now, with Adsense and DoubleClick, Google is starting to play with using more about what it knows about you, but so far, the system only uses traditional third-party tracking cookies AND some data about what you do on YouTube. There's substantial pressure inside the company to break down this wall further (see the recent WSJ article on the leaked docusments), but right now, it's hard to see where Google is "no longer concerned with the traditional Western notion of personal privacy." Other than that, it's a great troll on Gruber's part.

naner 16y ago

but at least our government answers to its citizens through elections. Haha. I agree with him that Schmidt is out of touch but still I trust Google's discretion over that of Congress. If Google missteps everyone cries bloody-murder and it can affect their profits and future projects. Congress systematically abuses power and profits from it. It is a matter of incentives and culture.

palish 16y ago

[Schmidt] predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites. Does this really seem so hard to believe? I'm one of the developers for a certain popular online video game. One time, I posted my personal email to the game's forums... it was along the lines of "If you happen to reproduce [certain really hard to reproduce problem], please type [console command] and send the results to [email address]". That kind of thing. Well, one of the fans managed to trace my name -> my email -> my Hacker News profile -> my hacker news comments, then started copy-pasting random things I had written from HN to the game's IRC channel. I didn't really mind... it was just very weird. But what if I were in an alternate reality, and I had said some really insane things on my HN account, like, say, C/C++ really isn't that terrible? You know, something absolutely crazy. Then an employer traced my name -> my email -> my Hacker News profile -> my insane comments. Now a potential employer has another data point about whether to hire me, one that I didn't necessarily want him to have. So I can see why it would potentially it would potentially be very useful to have a mechanism to very easily legally change your name. I've never looked into how to do that, since I have no reason to, but I assume it's probably difficult, or doesn't catch everything, or causes you headaches down the road, etc.

kmfrk 16y ago

My main gripe with Schmidt (in the way he is presented in the interview[^1]) is how casual he is about all the problems. You almost hear Steve Jobs's voice: "Change your name. Not that big of a deal". I don't know what goes on in Schmidt's head, and maybe he is as upset about the predicament of today's youth with the vociferous cornucopia of information most people leave behind. Maybe he has come to terms with these reservations at some point, which is why we hear no lament, no reprehensions, no fear and expressed personal(!) feelings. Nevertheless, he comes across as creepy because of this, be it as an automaton, a corporate CEO, or someone who knows that he at the very least wields the key to the cogs and gears of most of the information-aggregating monster - keeping himself out of harm's way. I don't get a single vibe from him signalling that he finds the development troubling and at the very least wants to try to ameliorate the situation and development - as a private person and a corporate entity with a lot of influence. He seems to be welcoming the development. At the very least, if he has an moral fibre of independence, he is accepting it, and if he's indifferent, he's acquiescent. The last person who casually declared privacy dead was Mark Zuckerberg. Go figure. [1]: I want to emphasize this, because the structure of the article leaves no wiggle room for context and elaboration, which leaves Schmidt with the benefit of the doubt. And so I do. But Google is doing a [expletive] job at managing, building and recovering PR and brand value at the moment. And the mindset construed from the article lends itself to the recent hubbub of Google's moral qualms of how far they should go to monetize and foster more ad revenue.

GrandMasterBirt 16y ago

The problem I have with google is their collection of data. The government needs to control this. See when it comes to Facebook/twitter only what I WANT to become public, is public. I mean I only post on facebook/twitter what I want the world to see. Lets assume everything is public. While with google I am betting they can know where I live without any sort of geolocation gps or any other technology, because they will know what I search for, where I go (directions on google maps), when I go where I go, where I work, etc. I am betting they can recite my life better than I remember it. That I have a problem with. And pretty much everything I do online feeds google. And this applies to many online companies, google just does it better. The days of "lets not be evil, lets be awesome" are easily replaced by "lets make money!"

hugh3 16y ago
While with google I am betting they can know where I live without any sort of geolocation gps or any other technology, because they will know what I search for, where I go (directions on google maps), when I go where I go, where I work, etc. I am betting they can recite my life better than I remember it. If you don't want 'em to know that kind of information, then don't give it to 'em. Don't use google for search, don't use google for maps, don't use google for mail. Alternatively you can hide most of your identity with careful cookie management, or by using the "Incognito" feature in Chrome, which is made by... aw crap. Personally I don't bother to hide my actions from google since I never tell them anything interesting enough to catch anyone's attention, but I could if I wanted to.
- lotharbot 16y ago
  > If you don't want 'em to know that kind of information, then don't give it to 'em. Exactly. It's not like google is breaking into your home, holding you at gunpoint, and forcing you to type your personal and private information. Instead, people are using a network designed for information sharing, putting their information on that network, and then acting surprised when somebody aggregates it. If you don't want google having your private data, quit putting your private data into google software or onto the public internet. They don't know anything you (or your acquaintances) don't either tell them directly or say in public.

pclark 16y ago

I'm really curious on who is more naieve about the Google "don't be evil statement" the founders for thinking a public company could be like this, or the public for believing it.

mjterave 16y ago

Another contentless post from Gruber. Seriously, why does anybody want to support this asshole by linking to his posts? He's a whiny apple shill.

mcantelon 16y ago

>at least our government answers to its citizens through elections. It answers to lobbyists, actually.

guelo 16y ago

Good ol' ad hominem, it always seems to do the trick. Creepy, I guess that's better than some other things you could be called.

woodall 16y ago

" We are moving to a Google that knows more about you." Google CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking to financial analysts, February 9, 2005, as quoted in the New York Times the next day http://www.scroogle.org/ http://www.scroogle.org/ Scroogle is nice because it lets you search without logging a cookie, IP, ect. Google logs a lot about you every time you search. Even if you are not doing something "illegal" you should still be worried. Think of the bigger picture; opsec.

random42 16y ago

Nowadays, there is no difference in online/real privacy. If I would not want to tell anyone/anything in real life, I would/should rather leave digital footprints of it on the internet either.

ramanujan 16y ago

Did Gruber float this at Steve Jobs' behest? Great anti-Google talking point, till you realize that Apple has quite a bit of data on you too with iTunes Genius (and will get more with iAds and their new cloud center). [In this particular case motives are of relevance]