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Are you being sarcastic? For months Google's only public response was to lobby the government for permission to release stats(?) to prove that they complied wi

by Amadou 13y ago

Are you being sarcastic? For months Google's only public response was to lobby the government for permission to release stats(?) to prove that they complied with the law - nary a word of criticism for the law itself. So now that Google's own autonomy has been breached by the NSA (all above-board and legal according to the NSA's legions of loop-hole seeking lawyers) instead of just Google's users, now they are mad? I just made another post about how a lot of people are unable to imagine what its like for others to be in a situation until they themselves are in the same situation. But... I'm not so sure Google, as an organization, has fully recognized the scope of the problem here.

adamnemecek 13y ago
I was being sarcastic, yes.
- Amadou 13y ago
  OK. I had laugh-snort reading the discussion on that page - at one point the original author, Mike Hearn, tries to argue that ad-based services are actually a good thing for privacy. Does Kool-Aid have a google flavor now?
  - enneff 13y ago
    You should respond to his argument instead of accusing him of brainwashing. The latter does nothing to advance the conversation.
    - Amadou 13y ago
      Can't. I so disbelieve in his argument that I won't sign up for G+. Besides, as Upton Sinclair was fond of saying, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
      - enneff 13y ago
        I'm suggesting you could rebut his argument here instead of just insulting his integrity.
        wzdd 13y ago
        Hearn claimed that there are two ways to fund services: through advertising, and through direct user payment. This is wrong. There are plenty of other ways to fund services. You could fund them indirectly, through sales of another product. Think about Apple giving away its software and Web services (funded by hardware sales), or Microsoft giving away its Web services (funded mostly by software sales), or even of Google's nonprofitable services and projects (the ultimate income source here is ads, but it needn't be). Alternatively, you could accept some anonymous form of payment. Bitcoin is the obvious one, but there are plenty of others -- gift cards come to mind, and these have been pretty successful for iTunes and the XBOX arcade. Or, of course, there's cash, Bitcoin, and other less convenient or mature technologies. Finally, the argument is a little disingenuous, given Google's push, with Google Plus, to know people's real identity anyway. It is clear that "advertising = better privacy" isn't a Google goal, at the high level.
        Amadou 13y ago
        I doubt he's reading this - but for you, sure... His claim is that there aren't any viable anonymous payment systems for the web but that advertising is semi anonymous, so that's better. (1) There are ways to make anonymous payments on the net, I can use cash to buy cash-cards in denominations up to $500 that work just like debit cards online, they are even branded with Visa and/or MasterCard. Until a couple of years ago you could buy even larger denominations but war on terror hysteria made it illegal to do without providing ID. None of the entrenched powers seemed to mind the new regulations all that much, which leads too... (2) The rise of advertising as the primary source of online funding has choked out development of alternative online payment systems in the same way that an invasive species chokes out native species that occupy the same ecological niche. If it weren't for companies like google we wouldn't be in the situation we are now because a lot more work would have gone into the development of alternative payment systems. (3) The entire goal of modern online advertising is to identify and track users as narrowly as possible so as to better "target" them. The more sophisticated online advertising systems become, the less anonymous the users become. Companies like BlueKai and hundreds of others exist to connect your real-life identity (and associated database entries) with your online activity. Even google does it with their real names policy for g+. So instead of each vendor only knowing about the specific transactions they have with you, there exist multiple databases that amalgamate all of your transactions (online and offline) across multiple vendors into one central record that is for sale. I'm well aware that Google thinks their user records are super proprietary and that they would never make that data openly available outside of Google, but (1) they are far from the only holder of such data and many of the others see selling/renting that database as their main source of profit, (2) sophisticated use of targeted ad-buys can indirectly mine Google's data, it's not as easy as just buying access like you would from a place like Experian but it is feasible under the right circumstances and (3) who can say if Google will have a change in corporate direction tomorrow and start selling access to all that data that they have been collecting for over a decade? So, in short, his claim was so blindered that it really was quite ridiculously naive/ignorant.

by Amadou 13y ago

adamnemecek 13y ago

I was being sarcastic, yes.

Amadou 13y ago
OK. I had laugh-snort reading the discussion on that page - at one point the original author, Mike Hearn, tries to argue that ad-based services are actually a good thing for privacy. Does Kool-Aid have a google flavor now?
- enneff 13y ago
  You should respond to his argument instead of accusing him of brainwashing. The latter does nothing to advance the conversation.
  - Amadou 13y ago
    Can't. I so disbelieve in his argument that I won't sign up for G+. Besides, as Upton Sinclair was fond of saying, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
    - enneff 13y ago
      I'm suggesting you could rebut his argument here instead of just insulting his integrity.
      - wzdd 13y ago
        Hearn claimed that there are two ways to fund services: through advertising, and through direct user payment. This is wrong. There are plenty of other ways to fund services. You could fund them indirectly, through sales of another product. Think about Apple giving away its software and Web services (funded by hardware sales), or Microsoft giving away its Web services (funded mostly by software sales), or even of Google's nonprofitable services and projects (the ultimate income source here is ads, but it needn't be). Alternatively, you could accept some anonymous form of payment. Bitcoin is the obvious one, but there are plenty of others -- gift cards come to mind, and these have been pretty successful for iTunes and the XBOX arcade. Or, of course, there's cash, Bitcoin, and other less convenient or mature technologies. Finally, the argument is a little disingenuous, given Google's push, with Google Plus, to know people's real identity anyway. It is clear that "advertising = better privacy" isn't a Google goal, at the high level.
      - Amadou 13y ago
        I doubt he's reading this - but for you, sure... His claim is that there aren't any viable anonymous payment systems for the web but that advertising is semi anonymous, so that's better. (1) There are ways to make anonymous payments on the net, I can use cash to buy cash-cards in denominations up to $500 that work just like debit cards online, they are even branded with Visa and/or MasterCard. Until a couple of years ago you could buy even larger denominations but war on terror hysteria made it illegal to do without providing ID. None of the entrenched powers seemed to mind the new regulations all that much, which leads too... (2) The rise of advertising as the primary source of online funding has choked out development of alternative online payment systems in the same way that an invasive species chokes out native species that occupy the same ecological niche. If it weren't for companies like google we wouldn't be in the situation we are now because a lot more work would have gone into the development of alternative payment systems. (3) The entire goal of modern online advertising is to identify and track users as narrowly as possible so as to better "target" them. The more sophisticated online advertising systems become, the less anonymous the users become. Companies like BlueKai and hundreds of others exist to connect your real-life identity (and associated database entries) with your online activity. Even google does it with their real names policy for g+. So instead of each vendor only knowing about the specific transactions they have with you, there exist multiple databases that amalgamate all of your transactions (online and offline) across multiple vendors into one central record that is for sale. I'm well aware that Google thinks their user records are super proprietary and that they would never make that data openly available outside of Google, but (1) they are far from the only holder of such data and many of the others see selling/renting that database as their main source of profit, (2) sophisticated use of targeted ad-buys can indirectly mine Google's data, it's not as easy as just buying access like you would from a place like Experian but it is feasible under the right circumstances and (3) who can say if Google will have a change in corporate direction tomorrow and start selling access to all that data that they have been collecting for over a decade? So, in short, his claim was so blindered that it really was quite ridiculously naive/ignorant.