"if being honest is considered creepy" I don't see it that way, he's not creepy because he's honest, he's creepy because of what he's honest about. The fiction

"if being honest is considered creepy" I don't see it that way, he's not creepy because he's honest, he's creepy because of what he's honest about. The fictional Gordon Gecko was greedy and honest, but we wouldn't say that being honest was considered greedy, just that being greedy was considered greedy and Gordon Gecko happened to be honest about his venality. In this case, the CEO is being accused of creepiness for the beliefs he espouses, and he is honest about them. If the CEO of another search engine believes the exact same things but says otherwise, you're right we wouldn't consider him creepy yet because we wouldn't know. But the moment we find out, we'd consider that CEO creepy and dishonest. Mind you, upmodded for forcing me to examine my beliefs carefully. One thing we don't want to do is give people/companies who don't say one way or the other a free pass. In other words, if another CEO says they're in favour of privacy, fine. But it would be unfair to pile on Eric yet say nothing about Ballmer just because Ballmer doesn't say anything. The right thing to do is to ask Steve Ballmer what Microsoft/Bing's stance is on these exact same issues. And ask FB, and Apple, and everyone else collecting data. Saying nothing should not be better than being honest.