6 ms·

Genuine question: why is there not more outrage over Bing working in China? Surely there's as much user tracking/censorship as Google is doing?

by ipsum2 8y ago

przmk 8y ago
I think it is just due to the fact that Google has such a massive market share. In comparison, Bing seems pretty insignificant and would make less of an impact.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tareqak 8y ago
Microsoft and Bing never started with the mantra of "Don't be evil". Microsoft also has a much more established history of working with different government agencies and foreign governments. The perceived contrast from what people expect from Google and what Google is doing now is just that much more glaring/obvious.
- RamshackleJ 8y ago
  Yep claiming to be a force for good when behaving like an amoral organization only concerned with profit optimization is what irks people. pretending to be something you aren't is whats frustrating
- mtgx 8y ago
  And that is part of the reason why Microsoft has been hated/less trusted than Google for so long (and still is). Google is making a very big mistake ruining this image and supposedly core principles with the actions it's been taking in the past couple of years. They won't recover for decades from this, just like Microsoft still hasn't fully. Google's "Don't be evil" has been a huge branding asset, but it seems Google has been too eager to step all over it and throw it in the garbage lately. I wonder if it will be worth it. I hope it won't be. These days I distrust almost every move Google makes by default, and I imagine there is a growing number of people like me. Google may think "eh, so what, we'll just lose a few percent of our users, but gain all of those juicy killer machines and censorship contracts instead," but now people like me will also be first in line to support governmental action against the company (GDPR, etc), while before I would've been the first in line to defend it. So Google won't be losing just users or even advocates, but it's also turning them into vocal enemies - all in the name of continuing to grow those quarterly profits.
  - JoshMnem 8y ago
    > These days I distrust almost every move Google makes by default, and I imagine there is a growing number of people like me. Google has lost its way, not just with this, but with AMP/Chrome/URLs, and their impending destruction of one of the great achievements of modern technology -- the decentralized, open WWW. The Web was always under attack but to see the fatal blows delivered by Google is very depressing. I've already removed Facebook's companies entirely from my life. This year, I'm working on moving away from Google as much as possible.
    - jacksmith21006 8y ago
      Google has not lost their way. They walked away from billions in China when the government tried to hack Gmail accounts. Google made it so ALL people can afford a smartphone not just the rich like Apple. Apple on the other hand https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy-betrayal-for-chinese-icloud-users/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy... Campaign targets Apple over privacy betrayal for Chinese iCloud ...
      - JoshMnem 8y ago
        Smartphones are not necessarily good things. I think they are damaging attention[1] and causing a lot of negative effects on society (social media, fake information, etc.). Humans shouldn't be online at all times. [1] https://hbr.org/2018/03/having-your-smartphone-nearby-takes-a-toll-on-your-thinking https://hbr.org/2018/03/having-your-smartphone-nearby-takes-...
      - curiousDog 8y ago
        They did it for a reason -- to sell ads. If they truly wanted it so people could afford it, they'd not be making billions of profits each year. They give you things for free at the cost of your privacy. Apple otoh is upfront about it.
    - MrEldritch 8y ago
      The Web would have been dead no matter what Google did. Its death was as inevitable as any human's - just a matter of which organs fail, in what order, and when. If there's one thing we can learn from all this, it's that decentralization of a network is best understood as a temporary process for electing the monopoly node(s).
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
Some at Microsoft, especially foreigners working in China, had some issues about it, but Microsoft has always been really consistent about how it operates in China, which, for better or worse, has always been close to the desires of the Chinese government.
option 8y ago
this is one of the reasons why I left MS working on Bing (though, not the most important at that time)
cheeze 8y ago
Everyone knows that Microsoft has no backbone though.

Genuine question: why is there not more outrage over Bing working in China? Surely there's as much user tracking/censorship as Google is doing?

by ipsum2 8y ago

Genuine question: why is there not more outrage over Bing working in China? Surely there's as much user tracking/censorship as Google is doing?

przmk 8y ago

I think it is just due to the fact that Google has such a massive market share. In comparison, Bing seems pretty insignificant and would make less of an impact.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

tareqak 8y ago

Microsoft and Bing never started with the mantra of "Don't be evil". Microsoft also has a much more established history of working with different government agencies and foreign governments. The perceived contrast from what people expect from Google and what Google is doing now is just that much more glaring/obvious.

RamshackleJ 8y ago
Yep claiming to be a force for good when behaving like an amoral organization only concerned with profit optimization is what irks people. pretending to be something you aren't is whats frustrating
mtgx 8y ago
And that is part of the reason why Microsoft has been hated/less trusted than Google for so long (and still is). Google is making a very big mistake ruining this image and supposedly core principles with the actions it's been taking in the past couple of years. They won't recover for decades from this, just like Microsoft still hasn't fully. Google's "Don't be evil" has been a huge branding asset, but it seems Google has been too eager to step all over it and throw it in the garbage lately. I wonder if it will be worth it. I hope it won't be. These days I distrust almost every move Google makes by default, and I imagine there is a growing number of people like me. Google may think "eh, so what, we'll just lose a few percent of our users, but gain all of those juicy killer machines and censorship contracts instead," but now people like me will also be first in line to support governmental action against the company (GDPR, etc), while before I would've been the first in line to defend it. So Google won't be losing just users or even advocates, but it's also turning them into vocal enemies - all in the name of continuing to grow those quarterly profits.
- JoshMnem 8y ago
  > These days I distrust almost every move Google makes by default, and I imagine there is a growing number of people like me. Google has lost its way, not just with this, but with AMP/Chrome/URLs, and their impending destruction of one of the great achievements of modern technology -- the decentralized, open WWW. The Web was always under attack but to see the fatal blows delivered by Google is very depressing. I've already removed Facebook's companies entirely from my life. This year, I'm working on moving away from Google as much as possible.
  - jacksmith21006 8y ago
    Google has not lost their way. They walked away from billions in China when the government tried to hack Gmail accounts. Google made it so ALL people can afford a smartphone not just the rich like Apple. Apple on the other hand https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy-betrayal-for-chinese-icloud-users/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy... Campaign targets Apple over privacy betrayal for Chinese iCloud ...
    - JoshMnem 8y ago
      Smartphones are not necessarily good things. I think they are damaging attention[1] and causing a lot of negative effects on society (social media, fake information, etc.). Humans shouldn't be online at all times. [1] https://hbr.org/2018/03/having-your-smartphone-nearby-takes-a-toll-on-your-thinking https://hbr.org/2018/03/having-your-smartphone-nearby-takes-...
    - curiousDog 8y ago
      They did it for a reason -- to sell ads. If they truly wanted it so people could afford it, they'd not be making billions of profits each year. They give you things for free at the cost of your privacy. Apple otoh is upfront about it.
  - MrEldritch 8y ago
    The Web would have been dead no matter what Google did. Its death was as inevitable as any human's - just a matter of which organs fail, in what order, and when. If there's one thing we can learn from all this, it's that decentralization of a network is best understood as a temporary process for electing the monopoly node(s).

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

Some at Microsoft, especially foreigners working in China, had some issues about it, but Microsoft has always been really consistent about how it operates in China, which, for better or worse, has always been close to the desires of the Chinese government.

option 8y ago

this is one of the reasons why I left MS working on Bing (though, not the most important at that time)

cheeze 8y ago

Everyone knows that Microsoft has no backbone though.