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I feel I can trust Google today. What if Larry and Sergey sell the company tomorrow? What if I decide to go into politics and a written record of me saying the

by lrem 7y ago

I feel I can trust Google today. What if Larry and Sergey sell the company tomorrow? What if I decide to go into politics and a written record of me saying the sky is blue and 2+2=4 becomes a problem? As someone who supported a major database in Google some five years ago: the amount of development effort that went into the GDPR compliance (we haven't even heard that name then, only that the EU is brewing a law that requires us to be able to delete data) was very surprising. So at least one corp does actually delete the data correctly.

nathias 7y ago
if you feel you can trust Google today, you'll probably feel the same way in the future, regardless of what happens
- lrem 7y ago
  I re-evaluate my stances rather regularly. I've switched on brands, politics, climate change approach, even countries to live. I don't think Google has some kind of magic stranglehold, it's just a company I like right now.
- LocalPCGuy 7y ago
  This just ... isn't true. People can and do evolve their opinions, feelings and levels of trust over time. I.e. people change. Particularly in response to external changes as you imply ("regardless of what happens").
  - nathias 7y ago
    people are like slowly boiling frogs, google stopped not being evil a long time ago
    - LocalPCGuy 7y ago
      Not arguing on the point of whether google is evil or not, or when that happened. But the boiling frog analogy is something that just isn't true: > "According to Dr. George R. Zug, curator of reptiles and amphibians, the National Museum of Natural History, 'Well that's, may I say, bullshit. If a frog had a means of getting out, it certainly would get out. And I cannot imagine that anything dropped in boiling water would not be scalded and die from the injuries.'" > "Professor Doug Melton, Harvard University Biology Department, says, 'If you put a frog in boiling water, it won't jump out. It will die. If you put it in cold water, it will jump before it gets hot -- they don't sit still for you.'" > "Vic's (Dr. Victor Hutchison of the University of Oklahoma) answer was as follows: 'The legend is entirely incorrect! The 'critical thermal maxima' of many species of frogs have been determined by several investigators. In this procedure, the water in which a frog is submerged is heated gradually at about 2 degrees Fahrenheit per minute. As the temperature of the water is gradually increased, the frog will eventually become more and more active in attempts to escape the heated water. If the container size and opening allow the frog to jump out, it will do so. Naturally, if the frog were not allowed to escape it would eventually begin to show signs of heat stress, muscular spasms, heat rigor, and death.'" Quotes from: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=758865 http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=758865 Additional info: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2006/09/the-boiled-frog-myth-stop-the-lying-now/7446/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2006/09/the-b...
      - nathias 7y ago
        factual frog behavior is irrelevant to that analogy, but I appreciate new frog facts nonetheless
lima 7y ago
Yandex' open source ClickHouse analytics database also had significant engineering effort applied to enable selective and permanent deletion of data in what used to be an append-only database that could only drop whole partitions. Regulation works, and the large tech companies are the most likely to be compliant, since they have the most to lose and have mature compliance and legal processes. Google is particularly good about this - consumer trust is their #1 asset.

by lrem 7y ago

nathias 7y ago

if you feel you can trust Google today, you'll probably feel the same way in the future, regardless of what happens

lrem 7y ago
I re-evaluate my stances rather regularly. I've switched on brands, politics, climate change approach, even countries to live. I don't think Google has some kind of magic stranglehold, it's just a company I like right now.
LocalPCGuy 7y ago
This just ... isn't true. People can and do evolve their opinions, feelings and levels of trust over time. I.e. people change. Particularly in response to external changes as you imply ("regardless of what happens").
- nathias 7y ago
  people are like slowly boiling frogs, google stopped not being evil a long time ago
  - LocalPCGuy 7y ago
    Not arguing on the point of whether google is evil or not, or when that happened. But the boiling frog analogy is something that just isn't true: > "According to Dr. George R. Zug, curator of reptiles and amphibians, the National Museum of Natural History, 'Well that's, may I say, bullshit. If a frog had a means of getting out, it certainly would get out. And I cannot imagine that anything dropped in boiling water would not be scalded and die from the injuries.'" > "Professor Doug Melton, Harvard University Biology Department, says, 'If you put a frog in boiling water, it won't jump out. It will die. If you put it in cold water, it will jump before it gets hot -- they don't sit still for you.'" > "Vic's (Dr. Victor Hutchison of the University of Oklahoma) answer was as follows: 'The legend is entirely incorrect! The 'critical thermal maxima' of many species of frogs have been determined by several investigators. In this procedure, the water in which a frog is submerged is heated gradually at about 2 degrees Fahrenheit per minute. As the temperature of the water is gradually increased, the frog will eventually become more and more active in attempts to escape the heated water. If the container size and opening allow the frog to jump out, it will do so. Naturally, if the frog were not allowed to escape it would eventually begin to show signs of heat stress, muscular spasms, heat rigor, and death.'" Quotes from: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=758865 http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=758865 Additional info: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2006/09/the-boiled-frog-myth-stop-the-lying-now/7446/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2006/09/the-b...
    - nathias 7y ago
      factual frog behavior is irrelevant to that analogy, but I appreciate new frog facts nonetheless

lima 7y ago

Yandex' open source ClickHouse analytics database also had significant engineering effort applied to enable selective and permanent deletion of data in what used to be an append-only database that could only drop whole partitions. Regulation works, and the large tech companies are the most likely to be compliant, since they have the most to lose and have mature compliance and legal processes. Google is particularly good about this - consumer trust is their #1 asset.