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"We don’t persist logs for our users without accounts and configured networks, I’m not sure Google makes the same statement." What FUD. Was this statement fro

"We don’t persist logs for our users without accounts and configured networks, I’m not sure Google makes the same statement." What FUD. Was this statement from the FAQ[0] not explicit enough? "With Google Public DNS, we collect IP address (only temporarily) and ISP and location information (in permanent logs) for the purpose of making our service faster, better and more secure. Specifically, we use this data to conduct debugging and to analyze abuse phenomena. After 24 hours, we erase any IP information." Or what about this more detailed explanation[1] on the linked privacy page? [Originally posted, but removed on account of formatting issues] If you don't know the answer to a question about a competitor's service, the appropriate, ethical thing to say is, "I don't know." When you say, "We do <good thing X>, I don't know if they do," you are by your omission sowing the seeds of fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the audience, for your economic reasons. [0] http://code.google.com/intl/en-EN/speed/public-dns/faq.html#privacy http://code.google.com/intl/en-EN/speed/public-dns/faq.html#... [1] http://code.google.com/intl/en-EN/speed/public-dns/privacy.html http://code.google.com/intl/en-EN/speed/public-dns/privacy.h...

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huhtenberg 15y ago
This might be a poorly written article, but it does lead to an interesting question - what does Google expect to get back from offering a DNS service for free? They couldn't keep group archives up due to the "maintenance overhead", so they are cost-conscious. They are way beyond being "no evil", so this is hardly a charity for a greater good. There must be the reason. Changing the privacy policy is a very simple thing to do. Today they don't recycle any DNS info, but - click - and tomorrow they suddenly do. And being in the business of cross-correlating anything and everything, I can't imagine how tempted they are. So the question is this - should they announce a change to the privacy policy, how many sysadmins and laymen will get off their lazy asses and switch away from Google? And how many would notice the change to begin with.
- deleted 15y ago
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- tedivm 15y ago
  While they may erase "IP information", that doesn't mean they've erased the aggregate data. They could easily take a list of the actual domains and figure out how popular they are in various regions based off of the dns queries again them.
  - chc 15y ago
    OpenDNS could do this too. I don't see how this is a disturbing outcome. If Google wanted this information, it wouldn't really need GDNS (and it's probably not even the best way for Google to do it).
- jemfinch 15y ago
  > what does Google expect to get back from offering a DNS service for free? The same reason we've been giving since we released it: to make the Internet faster for people. > They are way beyond being "no evil", so this is hardly a charity for a greater good. No, it's because when the Internet works better for people they use it more, and we make more money. > I can't imagine how tempted they are. More FUD.
- pjscott 15y ago
  Google has a financial incentive to want latency online to be lower. The more people use the internet for things, the more ad money they can make. By offering their own DNS service, they can lower the DNS latency for some people, and goad competing DNS services into becoming faster as well. I doubt that running Google DNS costs a huge amount of money, so the incentive to Google can be pretty subtle and still be worthwhile.

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huhtenberg 15y ago

This might be a poorly written article, but it does lead to an interesting question - what does Google expect to get back from offering a DNS service for free? They couldn't keep group archives up due to the "maintenance overhead", so they are cost-conscious. They are way beyond being "no evil", so this is hardly a charity for a greater good. There must be the reason. Changing the privacy policy is a very simple thing to do. Today they don't recycle any DNS info, but - click - and tomorrow they suddenly do. And being in the business of cross-correlating anything and everything, I can't imagine how tempted they are. So the question is this - should they announce a change to the privacy policy, how many sysadmins and laymen will get off their lazy asses and switch away from Google? And how many would notice the change to begin with.

deleted 15y ago
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tedivm 15y ago
While they may erase "IP information", that doesn't mean they've erased the aggregate data. They could easily take a list of the actual domains and figure out how popular they are in various regions based off of the dns queries again them.
- chc 15y ago
  OpenDNS could do this too. I don't see how this is a disturbing outcome. If Google wanted this information, it wouldn't really need GDNS (and it's probably not even the best way for Google to do it).
jemfinch 15y ago
> what does Google expect to get back from offering a DNS service for free? The same reason we've been giving since we released it: to make the Internet faster for people. > They are way beyond being "no evil", so this is hardly a charity for a greater good. No, it's because when the Internet works better for people they use it more, and we make more money. > I can't imagine how tempted they are. More FUD.
pjscott 15y ago
Google has a financial incentive to want latency online to be lower. The more people use the internet for things, the more ad money they can make. By offering their own DNS service, they can lower the DNS latency for some people, and goad competing DNS services into becoming faster as well. I doubt that running Google DNS costs a huge amount of money, so the incentive to Google can be pretty subtle and still be worthwhile.