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> Google, the institution, just has not to be evil, as they have defined evil. That there's obvious internal disquet about their new direction should be fairly

> Google, the institution, just has not to be evil, as they have defined evil. That there's obvious internal disquet about their new direction should be fairly disqueting to you. Could you point me to the obvious internal disquiet? Is this in reference to Larry Page's supposed "ultimatum"? Because I was under the impression that that was a simple expression of his commitment to his vision for the company, misrepresented by a hostile media entity. It seems to me that the bulk of your objection boils down to Google's continued and expanding collection of personal data, and an impending but vaguely characterized misuse of that data. > That's part of the problem, I don't think anyone does really. We're in uncharted territory and part of the reason it's so tricky is so much can be inferred about you from seemingly innocuous data, or from analysing your social graph. I generally find warnings about vague, ill-defined threats to be unconvincing. > Once they have the data and it's been mined for further meaning, it's inevitable they'll find new uses for it. This does not seem at all self-evident to me. In fact, it seems to me that Google's incentives are such that it's pretty much in their interest to use the data well. They have no incentive to sell it, since it allows them to target search results and ads better. And they have every incentive to keep their users' trust. And as far as I can tell, they've taken the issue pretty seriously. The Google Buzz disclosure incident is the only accidental exposure of information I can remember, and they handled it pretty well.

5l 15y ago
> Could you point me to the obvious internal disquiet? It was to this [0] article I was referring. I don't think he was misrepresented, but the Larry Page quote was really beside the point. Edit: reworded the paragraphs below for clarity > impending but vaguely characterized misuse of that data. There have already been a number of occasions where either Google's network was compromised [1], a rogue employee has misused data [2] or users have had their accounts hacked [3] en masse. And of course, on top of this, various government and intelligence agencies have had access to your data [4]. None of that should be the least bit shocking or surprising, because such outcomes are inevitable when a large company holds so much data. I'm not going to blame Google; none of those incidents served their interests and indeed compared to most companies Google are unusually transparent and responsive about these issues. But knowing that these things will happen regardless of their good intentions, Google should seek to minimise and not maximise the amount of data they hold on us. > > Once they have the data and it's been mined for further meaning, it's inevitable they'll find new uses for it. > This does not seem at all self-evident to me. Perhaps I should have said, "it's inevitable they'll find new ways to make money from it". They're a company, after all. > In fact, it seems to me that Google's incentives are such that it's pretty much in their interest to use the data well. [...] And they have every incentive to keep their users' trust. Well, we could say that about any company, and yet abuses occur regularly. If you set a companies profit motive against the best interests of it's customers, the cost of a breach of trust will simply be factored into the equation. Unfortunately it is frequently the case that while a breach of trust may be costly, it's not always costly enough. I don't think there's anything exceptional about Google here. They're not immune to corruption. Google has served us so well so far because our interests are aligned; it's the surest way to prevent an abuse of trust in the future and why I'm so concerned about their new strategy. [0] http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/24/larry-page-to-googlers-if-you-dont-get-spyw-work-somewhere-else/ http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/24/larry-page-to-googlers-if-y... [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/13/AR2010011300359.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01... [2] http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-09-14/tech/29992918_1_google-voice-google-engineer-google-accounts http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-09-14/tech/29992918... [3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/01/google-hacking-chinese-attack-gmail http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/01/google-hack... [4] http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/ http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/
- joebadmo 15y ago
  Let's leave the internal disquiet issue aside for now. The occasions of Google's data being compromised are notable for being exceptions, I think. Of course you're right that there's always the potential for misuse, and the only way to avoid misuse completely is to never gather data. It's parallel to the argument against big government. It's also parallel to the argument against nuclear power. But in each of these cases it's a matter of cost/benefit and risk analysis. You have to weight the risk and cost of misuse against the benefit of Google having that data. It seems that you're ok with the data Google has collected up til now, but you're worried about more data collection in the future. That's valid, but to me the benefits far outweigh the risk/cost. Part of this is that Google's structured in such a way that its incentives are to keep the data private (within its own network) because it makes money by having sole proprietorship over it. I think a salient distinction here is between privacy and confidentiality. Google and Facebook both collect a lot of private information about their users. But Google makes money by keeping that private data confidential, while Facebook makes money by selling the data. These are the companies' respective structural traits. And I think that's what makes Google unique. > Google has served us so well so far because our interests are aligned; it's the surest way to prevent an abuse of trust in the future and why I'm so concerned about their new strategy. Can you elaborate as to how this new strategy no longer aligns our interests with Google's?
  - nbm 15y ago
    > Google and Facebook both collect a lot of private information about their users. But Google makes money by keeping that private data confidential, while Facebook makes money by selling the data. Facebook doesn't sell anyone's data. Facebook, like Google, allows advertisers to target advertisements to a particular demographic of users without divulging that user's identity or data. (I work at Facebook.)
    - joebadmo 15y ago
      Thanks for the correction, I didn't know that. Is there somewhere in the Facbook ToS that I can reference? I tried to find it, but couldn't.

5l 15y ago

> Could you point me to the obvious internal disquiet? It was to this [0] article I was referring. I don't think he was misrepresented, but the Larry Page quote was really beside the point. Edit: reworded the paragraphs below for clarity > impending but vaguely characterized misuse of that data. There have already been a number of occasions where either Google's network was compromised [1], a rogue employee has misused data [2] or users have had their accounts hacked [3] en masse. And of course, on top of this, various government and intelligence agencies have had access to your data [4]. None of that should be the least bit shocking or surprising, because such outcomes are inevitable when a large company holds so much data. I'm not going to blame Google; none of those incidents served their interests and indeed compared to most companies Google are unusually transparent and responsive about these issues. But knowing that these things will happen regardless of their good intentions, Google should seek to minimise and not maximise the amount of data they hold on us. > > Once they have the data and it's been mined for further meaning, it's inevitable they'll find new uses for it. > This does not seem at all self-evident to me. Perhaps I should have said, "it's inevitable they'll find new ways to make money from it". They're a company, after all. > In fact, it seems to me that Google's incentives are such that it's pretty much in their interest to use the data well. [...] And they have every incentive to keep their users' trust. Well, we could say that about any company, and yet abuses occur regularly. If you set a companies profit motive against the best interests of it's customers, the cost of a breach of trust will simply be factored into the equation. Unfortunately it is frequently the case that while a breach of trust may be costly, it's not always costly enough. I don't think there's anything exceptional about Google here. They're not immune to corruption. Google has served us so well so far because our interests are aligned; it's the surest way to prevent an abuse of trust in the future and why I'm so concerned about their new strategy. [0] http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/24/larry-page-to-googlers-if-you-dont-get-spyw-work-somewhere-else/ http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/24/larry-page-to-googlers-if-y... [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/13/AR2010011300359.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01... [2] http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-09-14/tech/29992918_1_google-voice-google-engineer-google-accounts http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-09-14/tech/29992918... [3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/01/google-hacking-chinese-attack-gmail http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/01/google-hack... [4] http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/ http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/

joebadmo 15y ago
Let's leave the internal disquiet issue aside for now. The occasions of Google's data being compromised are notable for being exceptions, I think. Of course you're right that there's always the potential for misuse, and the only way to avoid misuse completely is to never gather data. It's parallel to the argument against big government. It's also parallel to the argument against nuclear power. But in each of these cases it's a matter of cost/benefit and risk analysis. You have to weight the risk and cost of misuse against the benefit of Google having that data. It seems that you're ok with the data Google has collected up til now, but you're worried about more data collection in the future. That's valid, but to me the benefits far outweigh the risk/cost. Part of this is that Google's structured in such a way that its incentives are to keep the data private (within its own network) because it makes money by having sole proprietorship over it. I think a salient distinction here is between privacy and confidentiality. Google and Facebook both collect a lot of private information about their users. But Google makes money by keeping that private data confidential, while Facebook makes money by selling the data. These are the companies' respective structural traits. And I think that's what makes Google unique. > Google has served us so well so far because our interests are aligned; it's the surest way to prevent an abuse of trust in the future and why I'm so concerned about their new strategy. Can you elaborate as to how this new strategy no longer aligns our interests with Google's?
- nbm 15y ago
  > Google and Facebook both collect a lot of private information about their users. But Google makes money by keeping that private data confidential, while Facebook makes money by selling the data. Facebook doesn't sell anyone's data. Facebook, like Google, allows advertisers to target advertisements to a particular demographic of users without divulging that user's identity or data. (I work at Facebook.)
  - joebadmo 15y ago
    Thanks for the correction, I didn't know that. Is there somewhere in the Facbook ToS that I can reference? I tried to find it, but couldn't.