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Oh, the hypocrisy.... > "Bypassing that system is illegal for a good reason." Yes, so is invasion of privacy. Yet Google has no problem breaking the law and v
by bowlofpetunias 13y ago
Oh, the hypocrisy....
> "Bypassing that system is illegal for a good reason."
Yes, so is invasion of privacy. Yet Google has no problem breaking the law and violating civil rights for profit.
> "Unfortunately we live in a world where all too often, laws are for the little people."
Yeah, like tax laws and privacy laws...
If you want to get on this high horse, you shouldn't be working for Google.
- nodata 13y agoErm, what? Which law did they break, and which civil rights did they violate?
- CaptainZapp 13y agoLike indiscriminately and illegally sucking up WiFi data with their street view mobiles? Including account information and passwords on unsecured WiFi connections. Even if the accusation of "violating laws" may be a tad hyperbolic in the great scheme of things it's not a stretch to deem Google one of the most hypocritical companies around.
- meowface 13y agoThat did happen, but I believe the data was captured and stored by mistake. At the least, they had no intention to view or use any of that data. The NSA on the other hand actively intends everything it's doing in this case. Comparing Google's Wifi mishap with the NSA's hundreds (thousands?) of deeply questionable operations driven by invasions of privacy and security is comparing apples with oranges.
- thezilch 13y agoExcept, they didn't explicitly mean to do that, stopped doing that, and paid for the autonomous collection of trash that they threw out.
- icecreampain 13y agoYou are very naive if you think that Google does something by mistake (that also happens to fit well into their Big Black Hole of Information).
- thezilch 13y agoFirst of all, the public should do something about their privacy, if they are concerned about their privacy. Parents are teaching their children that anything they do on the internet is never private. Nonetheless, I doubt I'm naive to believe engineers are not always making mistakes. The trick is always in admitting mistake, learning from them, and fixing the future. In this case, Google acknowledged the -- lawful -- slip in privacy encroachments and assigned a privacy director to oversee engineering and product management efforts. Every Google product now maintains a privacy-design document.
- randac 13y agoGiven some of the other revelations, is it too tinfoil-hat to entertain the notion that Google were compelled to make the aforementioned slip-up? Almost certainly it is, but would I be surprised if it were true? Would anyone be? I'd be willing to bet the NSA had a good browse of the resulting data, either way.
- VikingCoder 13y agoYou are very paranoid if you think a corporation with thousands of employees never makes mistakes.
- skj 13y agoIn your narrative, would Google have self-reported this intrusion? Because, they didn't have to, and they did it anyway.
- raldi 13y agoI work for Google, and I can assure you, we do 100,000 things by mistake every day.
- ForHackernews 13y ago
- cbhl 13y agoWho in their right mind broadcasts account information and passwords unencrypted and expects it to not be recorded? That would be akin to using a megaphone and yelling your credit card numbers and expecting your neighbours to pretend they didn't hear you.
- kllrnohj 13y agoReceiving a broadcast isn't illegal - you shove it out into the air, you lost all privacy rights on that broadcast legally speaking. You can debate the ethics of it, but it wasn't illegal. And Google did get penalized for it.
- CaptainZapp 13y agoI'm not sure about the storage issue. At least not in the EU, which has pretty heavy restrictions on data collection and storage.
- ajross 13y agoSniffing unencrypted wifi packets and (apparently accidentally) storing them is just as bad as deliberately breaking into someone else's network to steal data? Come on. I remain amazed at the ability of people to project their own biases (Google is Evil in this case, probably via extrapolation from Apple is Insanely Great) onto things that one would hope would be objective moral points (spy agencies shouldn't be attacking the networks of non-enemies!).
- CaptainZapp 13y agoSniffing unencrypted wifi packets and (apparently accidentally) storing them is just as bad as deliberately breaking into someone else's network to steal data? Come on. Where did I say anything like that? Paraphrasing -, or quoting something that has absolutely no relation to what was really said is a pretty dishonest and low debating tactic in my book.
- atmosx 13y agoTax evasion in EU/US by Google/Apple is beyond imagination.
- jes 13y agoAre you claiming they act illegally, or are you claiming that they have some duty to pay more than they do today?
- atmosx 13y agoBoth
- devonbarrett 13y agoWhy do they have a duty to?
- grecy 13y agoUnfortunately, it's not illegal. Immoral? Yes. Evil? Yes.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- CaptainZapp 13y agoI totally agree. And I was even more stumped by Eric Schmidt's hypocritical blathering. This from the guy, who blacklisted CNN for reporting on him based on information found on Google. http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/
- AsymetricCom 13y agoWow, it's been a long time since CNN wrote news. I wonder if they've been coopted and the new owners are trying to piece them out by devaluing the brand.
- tmerr 13y agoTrue but I don't really mind hypocrisy. Would you rather he stayed quiet about the government?
- jfoster 13y agoHow can Google become a more well behaved company if everyone working for them follows that rule?
- gibwell 13y agoBecause they'll lose good people to competitors and be forced to improve their behavior if they want to retain talent.
- craigyk 13y agoOh no! Now the government knows the same things about you as we do! It's OK for us to exploit this information for profit, but I'm pissed as hell someone else might make use of it. I sense a little bit of butthurt from security people who thought they were the bee's knees but where getting completely owned.