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The government has a monopoly on violence. They can kill you, send you to gitmo, take all of your money and possessions, etc. Google by comparison can turn of

The government has a monopoly on violence. They can kill you, send you to gitmo, take all of your money and possessions, etc. Google by comparison can turn off your gmail account.

_delirium 13y ago
Depending on what precisely they do with the data, they could do things quite a bit more damaging than turning off your Gmail account, though it certainly wouldn't rise to the level of sending you to gitmo. The worst would probably be some kind of financial and/or career blackballing, if they sold data-mined information about you to credit agencies, lenders, private investigators, and/or prospective employers, and something particularly damaging were contained in it. I believe their privacy policy currently says they won't do that, and it's especially clear that they won't do anything except target ads using information mined out of your email. But I don't think there would be anything illegal about it, as long as they didn't do something like outright blackmail (offer to let you pay to expunge negative information or something).
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  The difference is that if Google did that, everyone would immediately stop giving them that information, which is worth more to them than the advantage they could gain in screwing you over once. On the other hand, if the government does this, people can do... what, exactly? Stop giving their information to the government? They didn't willingly do that to begin with. Stop giving it to Google? Maybe, but they would have to stop giving it to anyone, which is a lot more difficult than just switching from one service to another.
mpyne 13y ago
Well if you're willing to talk about illegal things the government could do to you it makes sense to talk about the illegal things Google could do to you; i.e., anything.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Our government has decided that it is allowed to do all of those things "legally" in certain circumstances. Execution, asset forfeiture, and detainment are all considered "legal". Nothing besides the government is permitted to do these things, they have a monopoly on that right.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    You don't need to put scare quotes around words, I'm well aware of the potential legality of all three categories. Slavery used to be legal too. I'm sorry the government is not completely perfect, but the answer is to go fix it and make things that should not be legal, illegal. Until then it's like complaining about shell companies used by Google and Facebook to avoid paying taxes (a strategy typically well-defended on HN because they're "technically complying with the law").
dragonwriter 13y ago
> The government has a monopoly on violence. No, it doesn't. People who aren't the government, and who lack its sanction in doing so, apply violence every day.
- mayanksinghal 13y ago
  And they can be/are prosecuted/jailed/shot/hanged/poisoned/electrocuted for that by the government.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    If you have an actual monopoly on violence, you don't need to retaliate against other people using violence with your own violence, because there aren't other people using violence. Now, perhaps the government has a monopoly on legitimate use of force (indeed, Max Weber used that as the criteria to define whether an entity was the government of a particular territory).
    - mayanksinghal 13y ago
      The legitimacy of an act (violence in this case) is highly subjective. The legality is a lot more objective. In this particular scenario, I think I would rather say that the government has a legal monopoly on violence. The legitimacy argument breaks down for oppressive governments where some revolting citizens take up violence because they see it as their last and only option. Some might argue that their act is legitimate, but it is still illegal. Now, one could always say that if the violence by government is not legitimate, it is no longer a government. But that is largely a philosophical/literary point. Here, when people are saying that Government has a monopoly on violence, they mean that the voters have granted them a legal right to do use force (which is at least pseudo-aggressive if not violent in all cases). The legitimacy can be contested in courts and debated upon in the next election - but till then, they reserve the monopoly.
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        > The legitimacy of an act (violence in this case) is highly subjective. In the sense Weber uses it, it may be fuzzy, but its not subjective (its essentially the aggregate of how it is treated by the people in the territory.) > The legitimacy of an act (violence in this case) is highly subjective. The idea that legality is objective in a way legitimacy is not is debatable. > I think I would rather say that the government has a legal monopoly on violence. Perhaps, but that seems to be a trivial tautology, in that what is legal is precisely, by definition, what is formally allowed by some government. > The legitimacy argument breaks down for oppressive governments where some revolting citizens take up violence because they see it as their last and only option. Weber would state that, to the extent that this is a general failure over some subset of its territory, the entity has failed as the government of that territory -- that, in the case where no entity exercise a legal monopoly on violence over a territory, there is no government, and in the case where there is such an entity but its not the one that is claiming to be the government, then the claiming entity is simply wrong. > Some might argue that their act is legitimate, but it is still illegal. In the eyes of the purported government that they are revolting against, but not in the eyes of the purported government that they have formed in the revolution. Legality has no meaning without reference to a governing authority.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
bifrost 13y ago
> Google by comparison can turn off your gmail account. I take it you've never lost an important email account, it can be very isolating. For some people that can be deadly. I'm not saying that them fighting it isn't a good thing, but its hillarious that they're holding themselves out to be crusaders of freedom and privacy when they are one of the most prolific producers of "profile" data. You could even say they create "anti-privacy".

The government has a monopoly on violence. They can kill you, send you to gitmo, take all of your money and possessions, etc. Google by comparison can turn off your gmail account.

_delirium 13y ago

Depending on what precisely they do with the data, they could do things quite a bit more damaging than turning off your Gmail account, though it certainly wouldn't rise to the level of sending you to gitmo. The worst would probably be some kind of financial and/or career blackballing, if they sold data-mined information about you to credit agencies, lenders, private investigators, and/or prospective employers, and something particularly damaging were contained in it. I believe their privacy policy currently says they won't do that, and it's especially clear that they won't do anything except target ads using information mined out of your email. But I don't think there would be anything illegal about it, as long as they didn't do something like outright blackmail (offer to let you pay to expunge negative information or something).

AnthonyMouse 13y ago
The difference is that if Google did that, everyone would immediately stop giving them that information, which is worth more to them than the advantage they could gain in screwing you over once. On the other hand, if the government does this, people can do... what, exactly? Stop giving their information to the government? They didn't willingly do that to begin with. Stop giving it to Google? Maybe, but they would have to stop giving it to anyone, which is a lot more difficult than just switching from one service to another.

mpyne 13y ago

Well if you're willing to talk about illegal things the government could do to you it makes sense to talk about the illegal things Google could do to you; i.e., anything.

jlgreco 13y ago
Our government has decided that it is allowed to do all of those things "legally" in certain circumstances. Execution, asset forfeiture, and detainment are all considered "legal". Nothing besides the government is permitted to do these things, they have a monopoly on that right.
- mpyne 13y ago
  You don't need to put scare quotes around words, I'm well aware of the potential legality of all three categories. Slavery used to be legal too. I'm sorry the government is not completely perfect, but the answer is to go fix it and make things that should not be legal, illegal. Until then it's like complaining about shell companies used by Google and Facebook to avoid paying taxes (a strategy typically well-defended on HN because they're "technically complying with the law").

dragonwriter 13y ago

> The government has a monopoly on violence. No, it doesn't. People who aren't the government, and who lack its sanction in doing so, apply violence every day.

mayanksinghal 13y ago
And they can be/are prosecuted/jailed/shot/hanged/poisoned/electrocuted for that by the government.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  If you have an actual monopoly on violence, you don't need to retaliate against other people using violence with your own violence, because there aren't other people using violence. Now, perhaps the government has a monopoly on legitimate use of force (indeed, Max Weber used that as the criteria to define whether an entity was the government of a particular territory).
  - mayanksinghal 13y ago
    The legitimacy of an act (violence in this case) is highly subjective. The legality is a lot more objective. In this particular scenario, I think I would rather say that the government has a legal monopoly on violence. The legitimacy argument breaks down for oppressive governments where some revolting citizens take up violence because they see it as their last and only option. Some might argue that their act is legitimate, but it is still illegal. Now, one could always say that if the violence by government is not legitimate, it is no longer a government. But that is largely a philosophical/literary point. Here, when people are saying that Government has a monopoly on violence, they mean that the voters have granted them a legal right to do use force (which is at least pseudo-aggressive if not violent in all cases). The legitimacy can be contested in courts and debated upon in the next election - but till then, they reserve the monopoly.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > The legitimacy of an act (violence in this case) is highly subjective. In the sense Weber uses it, it may be fuzzy, but its not subjective (its essentially the aggregate of how it is treated by the people in the territory.) > The legitimacy of an act (violence in this case) is highly subjective. The idea that legality is objective in a way legitimacy is not is debatable. > I think I would rather say that the government has a legal monopoly on violence. Perhaps, but that seems to be a trivial tautology, in that what is legal is precisely, by definition, what is formally allowed by some government. > The legitimacy argument breaks down for oppressive governments where some revolting citizens take up violence because they see it as their last and only option. Weber would state that, to the extent that this is a general failure over some subset of its territory, the entity has failed as the government of that territory -- that, in the case where no entity exercise a legal monopoly on violence over a territory, there is no government, and in the case where there is such an entity but its not the one that is claiming to be the government, then the claiming entity is simply wrong. > Some might argue that their act is legitimate, but it is still illegal. In the eyes of the purported government that they are revolting against, but not in the eyes of the purported government that they have formed in the revolution. Legality has no meaning without reference to a governing authority.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

bifrost 13y ago

> Google by comparison can turn off your gmail account. I take it you've never lost an important email account, it can be very isolating. For some people that can be deadly. I'm not saying that them fighting it isn't a good thing, but its hillarious that they're holding themselves out to be crusaders of freedom and privacy when they are one of the most prolific producers of "profile" data. You could even say they create "anti-privacy".