5 ms·

It's a personal story of when someone stopped believing Google, not a deep analyses of why Google is "evil". For me Google stopped being credible when it did a

by rickmb 15y ago

It's a personal story of when someone stopped believing Google, not a deep analyses of why Google is "evil". For me Google stopped being credible when it did a 180 on net neutrality. There were good reasons before that, and there were certainly good reasons after that, but when someone or some company loses the benefit of the doubt is a personal thing. What currently pisses me off most about Google is their blatant disregard for privacy, more specifically their open and arrogant disdain for the way privacy is perceived (and protected by law) outside the US. In hindsight I "should" have started "hating" Google much earlier, and OMG, I still use Google. Doesn't make any single individual argument criticizing Google any less valid though. But most of all, the value in this post does not lie in his arguments, but in the fact that it illustrates the way in which Google is losing its supporters and its credibility as an ethical corporation.

Jgrubb 15y ago
In my humble opinion, and I apologize to any Facebook engineers who read this, but Facebook has touched off an ethical race to the bottom with regards to users, their privacy, and their information that can be sold to advertisers. It seems obvious in hindsight, but it's too bad nonetheless.
- rickmb 15y ago
  Facebook was always in the game of collecting private data and exploiting it. It's in the nature of their product, you pretty much sign up for that up front. Google offered services that didn't explicitly require users to register personal data (with some exceptions, like Orkut), and only much later started collating and exploiting all the information they gathered by observing. The latter is much creepier. It's the difference between someone asking you to fill out a form with very personal information and someone who's spying on you through binoculars. Also, Google betrayed people's trust with their whole "don't be evil" thing. Most people never trusted Facebook very much to begin with. Many of us trusted Google. Betrayal pisses people off more than just being screwed.
  - jrockway 15y ago
    Pretty much every company does this. Your phone company keeps a list of all people you call. (And happily give that list to anyone that asks nicely.) They collect information from your phone about dropped calls and keystrokes. Retail stores move stuff around and see if it changes your buying habits. Grocery stores track every item you buy and then have targeted ads print on your receipt. Amazon changes the price you see based on some profile it has built on you. Google does nothing worse than any of these companies -- when you have users, you accumulate user data. You can just leave it lying around for the government to collect, or you can fold it into your product to make it better. Google uses it to make their products better, and they have written policies on when the data gets anonymized and when the data gets discarded completely. Does your phone company or grocery store do that? Furthermore, Google is one of the few companies that actively tries to educate you on how they care about your privacy. There are ads in the subway. There are ads on TV. There are ads (right now) on the top of every Google property. They really want their processes to be transparent so that you know what you're signing up for when you use Google products. It seems irrational to hate Google when every other Internet company is collecting the same data that Google is, but they hide their policies it behind 300 pages of legalese and Google buys ads to make it easier for you to understand. I think there has to be some deeper issue than "they changed their privacy policy" or "my friends' pictures show up on the results page" that is causing all the Google hate. Because it just isn't justified for the privacy policy change or Search Plus Your World.
    - fred_nada 15y ago
      @jrockway - I know you just started at Google. Anyway, here are the deeper issues. 1. I had mentioned this in another post to you before. Anyway, some people(not all) are upset because your company said you were better than everyone else. "You can make money without being evil" "What is the best for users?" All that crap Google said to us and continues to say like it still exists. Google was the poster child of the business of the future. Everyone felt you were the ones that were actually going to do good. Facebook/MS/Apple never posed as is this. You did. And that is where the anger comes in. When you are told one thing and the opposite happens people get mad. They should have tried to manage expectations. 2. Thousands of businesses depend on your search engine. With some of them 80% of their business comes from you whether thru paid ads or not. Many of these companies never would have built their websites if Google didn't exist. When your company changes things to place their irrelevant content over the content of other websites/companies people are going to be pissed. What if Apple created their own applications for 50% of the categories in the app store and then placed their apps at the top of each category? Wouldn't you expect some sort of anger? Do you think Zynga would be pissed if Facebook placed all of their games higher than Zynga's games? Its the same thing.

by rickmb 15y ago

Jgrubb 15y ago

In my humble opinion, and I apologize to any Facebook engineers who read this, but Facebook has touched off an ethical race to the bottom with regards to users, their privacy, and their information that can be sold to advertisers. It seems obvious in hindsight, but it's too bad nonetheless.

rickmb 15y ago
Facebook was always in the game of collecting private data and exploiting it. It's in the nature of their product, you pretty much sign up for that up front. Google offered services that didn't explicitly require users to register personal data (with some exceptions, like Orkut), and only much later started collating and exploiting all the information they gathered by observing. The latter is much creepier. It's the difference between someone asking you to fill out a form with very personal information and someone who's spying on you through binoculars. Also, Google betrayed people's trust with their whole "don't be evil" thing. Most people never trusted Facebook very much to begin with. Many of us trusted Google. Betrayal pisses people off more than just being screwed.
- jrockway 15y ago
  Pretty much every company does this. Your phone company keeps a list of all people you call. (And happily give that list to anyone that asks nicely.) They collect information from your phone about dropped calls and keystrokes. Retail stores move stuff around and see if it changes your buying habits. Grocery stores track every item you buy and then have targeted ads print on your receipt. Amazon changes the price you see based on some profile it has built on you. Google does nothing worse than any of these companies -- when you have users, you accumulate user data. You can just leave it lying around for the government to collect, or you can fold it into your product to make it better. Google uses it to make their products better, and they have written policies on when the data gets anonymized and when the data gets discarded completely. Does your phone company or grocery store do that? Furthermore, Google is one of the few companies that actively tries to educate you on how they care about your privacy. There are ads in the subway. There are ads on TV. There are ads (right now) on the top of every Google property. They really want their processes to be transparent so that you know what you're signing up for when you use Google products. It seems irrational to hate Google when every other Internet company is collecting the same data that Google is, but they hide their policies it behind 300 pages of legalese and Google buys ads to make it easier for you to understand. I think there has to be some deeper issue than "they changed their privacy policy" or "my friends' pictures show up on the results page" that is causing all the Google hate. Because it just isn't justified for the privacy policy change or Search Plus Your World.
  - fred_nada 15y ago
    @jrockway - I know you just started at Google. Anyway, here are the deeper issues. 1. I had mentioned this in another post to you before. Anyway, some people(not all) are upset because your company said you were better than everyone else. "You can make money without being evil" "What is the best for users?" All that crap Google said to us and continues to say like it still exists. Google was the poster child of the business of the future. Everyone felt you were the ones that were actually going to do good. Facebook/MS/Apple never posed as is this. You did. And that is where the anger comes in. When you are told one thing and the opposite happens people get mad. They should have tried to manage expectations. 2. Thousands of businesses depend on your search engine. With some of them 80% of their business comes from you whether thru paid ads or not. Many of these companies never would have built their websites if Google didn't exist. When your company changes things to place their irrelevant content over the content of other websites/companies people are going to be pissed. What if Apple created their own applications for 50% of the categories in the app store and then placed their apps at the top of each category? Wouldn't you expect some sort of anger? Do you think Zynga would be pissed if Facebook placed all of their games higher than Zynga's games? Its the same thing.