4 ms·

Conveniently you (and everyone else who quotes that line) left out the following part. "But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search

Conveniently you (and everyone else who quotes that line) left out the following part. "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 [...] we’re all subject, in the US, to the Patriot Act, and it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities." His whole point is to NOT use their services because they are bound by law to turn over that kind of data. Not to shame you.

PakG1 8y ago
I'm not making fun of you, I'm just guessing that the value you get from my service is worth more than the concerns you have about your privacy. Come join me. I promise I won't hurt you so much. You'll enjoy it.
- icelancer 8y ago
  You're free to make your own choices. Schmidt (and Google) make no such promise. Use ProtonMail and DDG if you care so much, others will use Google, life moves on. No one is coercing anyone else.
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    > No one is coercing anyone else. Specifically because Schmidt made a career as a lobbyist for privacy erosion, I think he's open to criticism on this basis, even if he is not guilty of coercion. If it were some random person who was just developing a product I would agree with you to leave well enough alone, but I think the lobbying angle is enough to clear the bar of "theses actions should be publicly scrutinized".
    - JoeSmithson 8y ago
      What anti-privacy lobbying are you referencing?
      - erikpukinskis 8y ago
        I don't know specifically, I just know he was Google's top lobbyist and their business model depends on a certain privacy law landscape.
  - PakG1 8y ago
    My point isn't that he's coercing. He isn't. I said that clearly. My point is that he's being disingenuous. Edit: for the record, I did switch off of gmail too :)
  - patkai 8y ago
    "No one is coercing anyone else" - in a way they are. As a software developer I don't think I have the choice not to use one of the big clouds. Protonmail and DDG I do use, but I can't use Hetzner instead of AWS or GCE if I want to remain competitive. (Offtopic: I am actually starting a new project and this is what I'm struggling with.)
    - icelancer 8y ago
      The companies aren't the ones that are the problems here if you're worried about the clouds here and privacy. It is the United States government, their laws, and enforcement.
derangedHorse 8y ago
I don't understand how this part is "conveniently" left out. What about this quote weakens the OP's implication of hypocrisy among business leaders?
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  I think the idea is that the continuation of the quote reframes "shouldn't" from a moral to a practical exhortation, saying that not being observed is unrealistic and so doing things you would want to keep private is a bad idea because they won't be. I just went and found the video clip, though, and I think that reading is incorrect. Schmidt isn't saying "don't do those things because we can't hide you from the feds". He's very clearly making two distinct different claims about privacy; the second half is about people with 'legitimate' reasons to need extreme privacy, while the first half looks like exactly the moral judgement everyone portrays it as.
freyr 8y ago
He’s explaining the reality of the situation. But he’s also disregarding the fact that things people have done, historically, things that have been persecuted, but may only be “wrong” according to shifting cultural temperaments (e.g., loving somebody outside your race). It’s pretty tone-deaf, in that sense.
- kodz4 8y ago
  Well I am just thankful Google didn't have a Larry Ellison or Rupert Murdoch controlling it. It's pure luck they weren't more evil than they actually were.
sealjam 8y ago
Is avoiding using "their services" sufficient or even possible/plausible? I may be being overly cynical here, but I think it's relevant. "The homepages of popular sites placed cookies for 275 third-party hosts. In just visiting the homepage of popular sites, we found 32 websites placed 100 or more cookies, 7 websites placed 200 or more cookies, and 6 websites placed 300 or more cookies. We found that Google tracking infrastructure is on 92 of the top 100 most popular websites and on 923 of the top 1,000 websites. This means that Google's ability to track users on popular websites is unparalleled, and it approaches the level of surveillance that only an Internet Service Provider can achieve." https://techscience.org/a/2015121502/ https://techscience.org/a/2015121502/
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
  At the time of the comment it was quite possible.
- bcrosby95 8y ago
  When toys r us was still in business, I went digital dumpster diving on all the 3rd party domain references to find the companies behind all of them. At the end of the day it seemed like pretty much every major tech company I could think of was getting a hit by my browser. I'm not sure if this was the exception or norm - I was just curious because their website was soooo slooow.

PakG1 8y ago

I'm not making fun of you, I'm just guessing that the value you get from my service is worth more than the concerns you have about your privacy. Come join me. I promise I won't hurt you so much. You'll enjoy it.

icelancer 8y ago
You're free to make your own choices. Schmidt (and Google) make no such promise. Use ProtonMail and DDG if you care so much, others will use Google, life moves on. No one is coercing anyone else.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  > No one is coercing anyone else. Specifically because Schmidt made a career as a lobbyist for privacy erosion, I think he's open to criticism on this basis, even if he is not guilty of coercion. If it were some random person who was just developing a product I would agree with you to leave well enough alone, but I think the lobbying angle is enough to clear the bar of "theses actions should be publicly scrutinized".
  - JoeSmithson 8y ago
    What anti-privacy lobbying are you referencing?
    - erikpukinskis 8y ago
      I don't know specifically, I just know he was Google's top lobbyist and their business model depends on a certain privacy law landscape.
- PakG1 8y ago
  My point isn't that he's coercing. He isn't. I said that clearly. My point is that he's being disingenuous. Edit: for the record, I did switch off of gmail too :)
- patkai 8y ago
  "No one is coercing anyone else" - in a way they are. As a software developer I don't think I have the choice not to use one of the big clouds. Protonmail and DDG I do use, but I can't use Hetzner instead of AWS or GCE if I want to remain competitive. (Offtopic: I am actually starting a new project and this is what I'm struggling with.)
  - icelancer 8y ago
    The companies aren't the ones that are the problems here if you're worried about the clouds here and privacy. It is the United States government, their laws, and enforcement.

derangedHorse 8y ago

I don't understand how this part is "conveniently" left out. What about this quote weakens the OP's implication of hypocrisy among business leaders?

Bartweiss 8y ago
I think the idea is that the continuation of the quote reframes "shouldn't" from a moral to a practical exhortation, saying that not being observed is unrealistic and so doing things you would want to keep private is a bad idea because they won't be. I just went and found the video clip, though, and I think that reading is incorrect. Schmidt isn't saying "don't do those things because we can't hide you from the feds". He's very clearly making two distinct different claims about privacy; the second half is about people with 'legitimate' reasons to need extreme privacy, while the first half looks like exactly the moral judgement everyone portrays it as.

freyr 8y ago

He’s explaining the reality of the situation. But he’s also disregarding the fact that things people have done, historically, things that have been persecuted, but may only be “wrong” according to shifting cultural temperaments (e.g., loving somebody outside your race). It’s pretty tone-deaf, in that sense.

kodz4 8y ago
Well I am just thankful Google didn't have a Larry Ellison or Rupert Murdoch controlling it. It's pure luck they weren't more evil than they actually were.

sealjam 8y ago

Is avoiding using "their services" sufficient or even possible/plausible? I may be being overly cynical here, but I think it's relevant. "The homepages of popular sites placed cookies for 275 third-party hosts. In just visiting the homepage of popular sites, we found 32 websites placed 100 or more cookies, 7 websites placed 200 or more cookies, and 6 websites placed 300 or more cookies. We found that Google tracking infrastructure is on 92 of the top 100 most popular websites and on 923 of the top 1,000 websites. This means that Google's ability to track users on popular websites is unparalleled, and it approaches the level of surveillance that only an Internet Service Provider can achieve." https://techscience.org/a/2015121502/ https://techscience.org/a/2015121502/

DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
At the time of the comment it was quite possible.
bcrosby95 8y ago
When toys r us was still in business, I went digital dumpster diving on all the 3rd party domain references to find the companies behind all of them. At the end of the day it seemed like pretty much every major tech company I could think of was getting a hit by my browser. I'm not sure if this was the exception or norm - I was just curious because their website was soooo slooow.