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With the whole "NSA has a GMail backdoor" and "Windows Phone YouTube app blocking" thing, I really don't wannna defend Google but... Baseless accusations like

With the whole "NSA has a GMail backdoor" and "Windows Phone YouTube app blocking" thing, I really don't wannna defend Google but... Baseless accusations like that will get you nowhere.

danielsiders 13y ago
With the NSA at least theoretically we have congressional oversight. The same can't be said for Google and most of the other companies we trust with our data. Their level of access may be comparable with the NSA but there are few if any legal protections or opportunities for oversight. If the same abuses were happening, they might never come to light. With the big companies, we might only ever be able to speculate.
- pyre 13y ago
  Google employees that become whistle-blowers don't have to face the same adversity as government employees that become whistle-blowers. It's also easier to sue Google than it is to sue agencies like the NSA.
pyre 13y ago
> Windows Phone YouTube app blocking Wasn't the issue that the app displayed the YouTube videos without the advertisements though, and this was against the Terms of Service?
leot 13y ago
I'm usually surprised by the depths of cynicism I find at large corporations, not by their altruistic goody-two-shoes-ness. Google would be remiss if it wasn't trading against the massive wealth of data it has. They're probably not mining email (though they could use a proxy and look at the frequency of particular ads' being displayed in Gmail), and probably have a privacy line, somewhere, that they're unwilling to cross. But I'd be surprised if most people ended up being comfortable with that line's placement. And it's not like we have any way of knowing where it is.
w_t_payne 13y ago
Well, you are right that I do not have any evidence, and I am basically just spreading a rumor. However, the rumor originated from my former line manager back when I worked in the fund management industry, so it is not totally implausible for it to have some basis in truth. Also, Google does make investments beyond it's Google Ventures operation: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a7cZrfAtxQPw http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a7cZr...

With the whole "NSA has a GMail backdoor" and "Windows Phone YouTube app blocking" thing, I really don't wannna defend Google but... Baseless accusations like that will get you nowhere.

danielsiders 13y ago

With the NSA at least theoretically we have congressional oversight. The same can't be said for Google and most of the other companies we trust with our data. Their level of access may be comparable with the NSA but there are few if any legal protections or opportunities for oversight. If the same abuses were happening, they might never come to light. With the big companies, we might only ever be able to speculate.

pyre 13y ago
Google employees that become whistle-blowers don't have to face the same adversity as government employees that become whistle-blowers. It's also easier to sue Google than it is to sue agencies like the NSA.

pyre 13y ago

> Windows Phone YouTube app blocking Wasn't the issue that the app displayed the YouTube videos without the advertisements though, and this was against the Terms of Service?

leot 13y ago

I'm usually surprised by the depths of cynicism I find at large corporations, not by their altruistic goody-two-shoes-ness. Google would be remiss if it wasn't trading against the massive wealth of data it has. They're probably not mining email (though they could use a proxy and look at the frequency of particular ads' being displayed in Gmail), and probably have a privacy line, somewhere, that they're unwilling to cross. But I'd be surprised if most people ended up being comfortable with that line's placement. And it's not like we have any way of knowing where it is.

w_t_payne 13y ago

Well, you are right that I do not have any evidence, and I am basically just spreading a rumor. However, the rumor originated from my former line manager back when I worked in the fund management industry, so it is not totally implausible for it to have some basis in truth. Also, Google does make investments beyond it's Google Ventures operation: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a7cZrfAtxQPw http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a7cZr...