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Whatever your feelings on the ad, it brings up an interesting point: Eric Schmidt may be doing Google more harm than good these days. His remarks on privacy ha
by danilocampos 16y ago
Whatever your feelings on the ad, it brings up an interesting point:
Eric Schmidt may be doing Google more harm than good these days. His remarks on privacy have been weird. And not a little creepy.
More often than not, the big things that move the needle on my opinion of Google have been remarks of Schmidt's. Gruber said it well here:
http://daringfireball.net/2010/08/creep_executive_officer http://daringfireball.net/2010/08/creep_executive_officer
"Tthe problem with Google is that Eric Schmidt is creepy. I think he’s a really weird dude. 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.'"
Schmidt is really the public face of Google. Larry and Sergey seem to keep quiet, Marissa Mayer isn't doing those magazine features anymore, but every few months Schmidt just does or says something odd.
It's a questionable strategy. edit: Questionable, that is, when your company is trusted with the personal data of hundreds of millions of people. Caesar's wife must be above reproach.
- yanw 16y agoThat one quote was in reference to the patriot act and it was taken out context too many times it's ridiculous, the more recent WSJ quotes were about Schmidt playing the Scifi author, it's no excuse to depict him as a child molester and certainly no reason to agree with an anstroturfer anti-Google organization masquerading as a consumer advocacy group.
- danilocampos 16y agoIt doesn't matter. Like I said above in my edit: Caesar's wife must be above reproach. He doesn't get to say weird things that are taken out of context. He needs either better handlers or to step back and let someone more relatable be the person who represents the company to outsiders.
- yanw 16y agoI suppose from a purely PR angle you have a point. I once watched an interview with Steve Ballmer sitting next to him was a MSFT PR/Lawyer guy, his job was basically to hit Ballmer with a stick if he felt something stupid was about to be said, I suppose that approach could be adopted by Google, or better yet Google needs to get their women to do the interviews, as women perceived as more aware and sensitive to the privacy issue and it wouldn't hurt Google's image to show off their lady Googlers.
- extension 16y agoHe's no more creepy than Google the company, and they are no more creepy than present day technology in general. I don't find anything Schmidt has said to be particularly incorrect. If you have something you want to keep secret, you indeed should not be doing it, because privacy is dead and there is nothing Google can do to change that reality. In fact, Google is doing a relatively good job of easing us all into a world without privacy. Be glad it's not Microsoft doing it, or just about anybody else. Changing your name when you become an adult is an excellent idea (but I thought of it first http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10020477071 http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10020477071 ). And the serendipity thing is right on. Google is already great at giving people what they want but not so great at giving them things they don't know they want, in contrast to Facebook, Twitter, and Apple. Schmidt seems like a straight talker to me. At worst, he's a bit ambiguous.
- Qz 16y agoThe name change thing is bogus and isn't a solution anyway.
- ck2 16y agoHis comments over time indicate to me that Google is already doing some very creepy things, possible under court order with a gag order as well. Maybe he's trying to warn us. If not, then it's even more creepy.
- patrickaljord 16y ago> 'If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.' That was taken out of context. What he said was that if you don't want the government to know about your google search you should not be doing them because google would be forced by law to give the government your google search if they ask for them, there is nothing google can do about this as google is not above the law. Also, Gruber is a famous anti-google pro-apple guy so it's not surprising to see him quoting schmidt out of context to make a point against google.
- jacquesm 16y agoSure, but the company behind this (Microsoft, surprise!) isn't exactly smelling of roses either. The pot is calling the kettle black here.