8 ms·

For those saying Google is a benevolent company, here are a few signs that the bean counters are taking over: Tracking Google Apps for Education and even paid

For those saying Google is a benevolent company, here are a few signs that the bean counters are taking over: Tracking Google Apps for Education and even paid Google Apps for Business emails to build ad profiles, making misleading statement to the public that they're not doing so, and then when it finally came to statements to federal court, lacking the dare to continue lying and finally confessing the truth and then claiming the consumer Gmail policy applied to Apps for Education data. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.html http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.ht... Conspiring to kill SkyHook(and succeeding) with its 500lb outsized influence like Microsoft used to. http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-Samsung http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-la... Tracking the physical location of Android phones for ad purposes without properly informing users and disabling things like Google Now if you disable the tracking. http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/ http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/ Google employee access personal information of others. Google says it has fixed the issue, but how do we even know? Is there any legal safeguard against someone at Google reading your email? http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-teens-spied-on-chats http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-tee... Paid inclusion for shopping search results http://marketingland.com/once-deemed-evil-google-now-embraces-paid-inclusion-13138 http://marketingland.com/once-deemed-evil-google-now-embrace... Ranking Google+ reviews over Yelp results even if the user explicitly searches for Yelp http://www.searchenginejournal.com/yelp-complains-outranked-google-local-listings/111539/ http://www.searchenginejournal.com/yelp-complains-outranked-... Decreasing contrast in the background of ads, this especially hurts older people as ability to see contrast decreases with age, and the FTC found that almost half the people fail to notice that there are ads on the page, thus forcing products that are first in the organic results to pay Google for ads. http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-itor-maybe-not/ http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-itor-maybe-not/ http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentionally-trying-to-minimize-the-fact-that-these-are-ads/ http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentional... http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/ftc-googles-ad-practice-is-deceptive.html/?a=viewall http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/ftc-googles-ad-practice-i... Making people literally cry with the forced Google+ integration into Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs (warning, NSFW language) Extracting petty revenge on CNET for googling(!) information on its CEO http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/

jfuhrman 12y ago
Edit: I can't edit my post, perhaps due to the downvotes(why downvote without replying?), so here's a couple more. Tying Android App store to having Google search engine as default on Android, ensuring that alternative search engines cannot be shipped as default. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/12/documents-shed-light-on-google-rules-for-android/ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/12/documents-shed-light-... Stopping Acer from shipping Aliyun OS by threatening to pull the Play Store and Android beta access. Bonus points for enforcing this by the duplicitous moniker 'Open Handset Alliance' doublespeak http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/report-google-threatened-acer-forced-it-to-dump-rival-os/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/report-google-threate...
- lucb1e 12y ago
  Your profile is green (meaning new), maybe that's why you can't edit. I never noticed downvotes having anything to do with it. I found your post interesting and it contributes to the conversation, not sure why anyone would downvote (care to explain, downvoters?).
  - DCKing 12y ago
    I did not downvote. But I disagree his post contributes to the conversation. Nobody believes the strawman argument that Google is a "benevolent company". Of course they are being assholes to make their services more used. Everyone is aware of that. Moreover, "Google is evil" => "Google wants to create a lock-in for Chrome or Android" is a total non sequitur. None of what is mentioned means or even implies that Google wants to create a vendor lock-in for Chrome and Android. Nothing in that list has to do with creating a platform lock-in at all. In fact, it shows that Google are being assholes mostly about their services. It is their services that bring in the money, and I think Google really does not care if you use Firefox, Chrome, iOS, Android or whatever. As long as you use their services. Posting a list like that does not contribute at all to the discussion about Google's alleged vendor lock-in. It only makes this a Google hate thread, and muffles proper discussion.
    - 12y ago

jfuhrman 12y ago

Edit: I can't edit my post, perhaps due to the downvotes(why downvote without replying?), so here's a couple more. Tying Android App store to having Google search engine as default on Android, ensuring that alternative search engines cannot be shipped as default. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/12/documents-shed-light-on-google-rules-for-android/ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/02/12/documents-shed-light-... Stopping Acer from shipping Aliyun OS by threatening to pull the Play Store and Android beta access. Bonus points for enforcing this by the duplicitous moniker 'Open Handset Alliance' doublespeak http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/report-google-threatened-acer-forced-it-to-dump-rival-os/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/report-google-threate...

lucb1e 12y ago
Your profile is green (meaning new), maybe that's why you can't edit. I never noticed downvotes having anything to do with it. I found your post interesting and it contributes to the conversation, not sure why anyone would downvote (care to explain, downvoters?).
- DCKing 12y ago
  I did not downvote. But I disagree his post contributes to the conversation. Nobody believes the strawman argument that Google is a "benevolent company". Of course they are being assholes to make their services more used. Everyone is aware of that. Moreover, "Google is evil" => "Google wants to create a lock-in for Chrome or Android" is a total non sequitur. None of what is mentioned means or even implies that Google wants to create a vendor lock-in for Chrome and Android. Nothing in that list has to do with creating a platform lock-in at all. In fact, it shows that Google are being assholes mostly about their services. It is their services that bring in the money, and I think Google really does not care if you use Firefox, Chrome, iOS, Android or whatever. As long as you use their services. Posting a list like that does not contribute at all to the discussion about Google's alleged vendor lock-in. It only makes this a Google hate thread, and muffles proper discussion.
  - 12y ago