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The claim you're replying to is very specific, and starts off by acknowledging that Google does not live up to "Don't be evil" in general, so I don't think the

by geofft 6y ago

The claim you're replying to is very specific, and starts off by acknowledging that Google does not live up to "Don't be evil" in general, so I don't think the Medium post (which indeed describes some pretty evil behavior) refutes it. The claim is that Google does a much better job of protecting and securing your private information and not turning it against you than the Australian government - not that they do good things in general. Yes, they monetize the browsing behavior they collect from you. Yes, they are able to use that to price products at $0 so others can't compete without also finding ways to monetize data. Yes, senior management will gladly take Xi Jinping's money. Yes, senior management will gladly sleep with subordinates. Even so, they are better custodians of user data than the Australian government or the Australian media. And yes, they cannot protect their data from law enforcement - hence writing this letter telling the Australian voting public that if they don't want Australian law enforcement to compel Google to share certain data, they'd better stop this law. Let me put this another way - if the Australian government ran a free email service, would you advise every Gmail user in Australia to switch?

cbsmith 6y ago
The "don't be evil" was always widely misunderstood.
ignoramous 6y ago
> Let me put this another way - if the Australian government ran a free email service, would you advise every Gmail user in Australia to switch? False dichotomy? I think, as a technologist you'd agree we could do better than Gmail? > The claim is that Google does a much better job of protecting and securing your private information I concur, though (imo), it is a folly to assume Google would continue to uphold highest data-handling standards or could even keep all of the data secure despite employing world-class cryptographers and security researchers. [0] They may be better than most but their enormous cache is both a liability and a disaster waiting to happen. If such laws mean they collect less data because they cannot stomach sharing it (nevermind whether for privacy or business reasons), that is a win? I think, we'd find out they don't care about privacy after all... just their bottom line. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22235756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22235756
- geofft 6y ago
  > I think, as a technologist you'd agree we could do better than Gmail? No, actually. I mean, yes, as a programmer I agree that it's possible to violate people's privacy less than Google does. You simply don't write the privacy-violating code, simple as that. But as an employed person in tech I don't know who's going to do it. Reliably running a secure email service is hard. Companies are pushed by all sorts of pressures. I think a lot of us have realized, since a week ago, that it's not as realistic as we hoped to do better than Chrome. You can have world-class software engineers working for decades on an excellent, privacy-focused browser, and someone will come along and say that you're not monetizing it enough and lay you off. So, in fairness, I host my email with Fastmail (which happens to be headquartered in Australia, even). But I pay for it, because I understand that this is how I avoid them monetizing me, and frankly, requiring everyone to pay for email is both unrealistic (in part for the reason you described about Google pushing the price ceiling to zero) and unfair (not everyone can afford it). I'm also aware that Fastmail is almost certainly worse than Gmail at resisting highly-skilled targeted attacks from APTs etc.; I've just decided that that's not in my threat model. If I happened to become a high-profile target, I absolutely would switch to Gmail and Google's Advanced Protection. Google only cares about their bottom line, it's true. So does Fastmail - and fortunately for me, their bottom line is improved by me paying them instead of them monetizing me. And governments care only about power. There is some pressure on both Google's bottom line and the Australian government's power to be at least somewhat responsible: both could collapse if there was a serious breach of public confidence. The question we have right now is which pressure is stronger. The question we have for the long term is how we make both of those pressures stronger - ideally strong enough to support someone who does want to do better than Gmail for free email or better than Chrome for a free browser.

by geofft 6y ago

cbsmith 6y ago

The "don't be evil" was always widely misunderstood.

ignoramous 6y ago

> Let me put this another way - if the Australian government ran a free email service, would you advise every Gmail user in Australia to switch? False dichotomy? I think, as a technologist you'd agree we could do better than Gmail? > The claim is that Google does a much better job of protecting and securing your private information I concur, though (imo), it is a folly to assume Google would continue to uphold highest data-handling standards or could even keep all of the data secure despite employing world-class cryptographers and security researchers. [0] They may be better than most but their enormous cache is both a liability and a disaster waiting to happen. If such laws mean they collect less data because they cannot stomach sharing it (nevermind whether for privacy or business reasons), that is a win? I think, we'd find out they don't care about privacy after all... just their bottom line. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22235756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22235756

geofft 6y ago
> I think, as a technologist you'd agree we could do better than Gmail? No, actually. I mean, yes, as a programmer I agree that it's possible to violate people's privacy less than Google does. You simply don't write the privacy-violating code, simple as that. But as an employed person in tech I don't know who's going to do it. Reliably running a secure email service is hard. Companies are pushed by all sorts of pressures. I think a lot of us have realized, since a week ago, that it's not as realistic as we hoped to do better than Chrome. You can have world-class software engineers working for decades on an excellent, privacy-focused browser, and someone will come along and say that you're not monetizing it enough and lay you off. So, in fairness, I host my email with Fastmail (which happens to be headquartered in Australia, even). But I pay for it, because I understand that this is how I avoid them monetizing me, and frankly, requiring everyone to pay for email is both unrealistic (in part for the reason you described about Google pushing the price ceiling to zero) and unfair (not everyone can afford it). I'm also aware that Fastmail is almost certainly worse than Gmail at resisting highly-skilled targeted attacks from APTs etc.; I've just decided that that's not in my threat model. If I happened to become a high-profile target, I absolutely would switch to Gmail and Google's Advanced Protection. Google only cares about their bottom line, it's true. So does Fastmail - and fortunately for me, their bottom line is improved by me paying them instead of them monetizing me. And governments care only about power. There is some pressure on both Google's bottom line and the Australian government's power to be at least somewhat responsible: both could collapse if there was a serious breach of public confidence. The question we have right now is which pressure is stronger. The question we have for the long term is how we make both of those pressures stronger - ideally strong enough to support someone who does want to do better than Gmail for free email or better than Chrome for a free browser.