4 ms·

So much for "don't be evil".

• baxter 17y ago
  There's a difference between "don't be evil" and "be good".
  • zackattack 17y ago
    I disagree. I think every action is polarized. Some actions are just further towards one end of the spectrum than others.
• cbetz 17y ago
  In my opinion, he should apologize immediately or else resign. Unfortunately the cat already seems to be out of the bag to some extent. I really hope Sergey and Larry do not have the same disdain for privacy that Mr. Schmidt has exhibited. I was previously on the fence about trusting Google with all my data and personal information. This one idiotic sentence from the CEO makes the choice to stop using Google services a lot easier for me.
• jsm386 17y ago
  It seems like he's actually telling you, the user, not to be evil. Sad.
  • dhume 17y ago
    Hiding some behavior is not an acknowledgment that the behavior is wrong, just that there may be someone out there who thinks it is.
    • lsb 17y ago
      What, have you never planned a surprise party? People need privacy not only for nefarious ends.
      • pohl 17y ago
        So to put that scenario in the same context as the original quotation, one just needs to imagine the surprise party being ruined because the secret was handed over to the authorities under the U.S. Patriot Act.
        • gaius 17y ago
          SWAT showing up can really ruin a party.
        • philwelch 17y ago
          One imagines that the director of the NSA does not have many surprise parties thrown in his honor.
  • robobenjie 17y ago
    It seems to me that what he thought he was referring to was cases like a subpoena for child pornography. The cases when google is obliged to divulge personal information are reserved for cases in which someone is seriously believed to be evil. When people read his quote I think tend to think of embarrassing things they themselves have searched for, but no one is going to subpoena (or even care) about your search for "nurse + handcuffs". When I use google I know that there is some probability of the results getting hacked or leaked or subpoenaed or looked at by a google employee trying to improve search. However the expected value of that embarrassment (probability of someone I actually care about seeing it X how embarrassed I would be) is very low, and, for me, doesn't even come close to outweighing the benefit provided by the suite of google products. On the otherhand (and I think this is Erik's point) if you are using google to do something that would legitimately land you in jail the expected value of bad-stuff is much higher. (Actually both the probability of getting subpoenaed and the level of bad go up). I feel that there is this idea that everything you do everywhere on the internet can and should be totally private and that any chance that it isn't is seen as removing a fundamental right. In my opinion the internet is more like a trail out in the middle of the wilderness: usually no one sees what you do and its probably ok to have sex with your girlfriend without anyone knowing, but if you start burying bodies out there the FBI can and will use that against you.
    • ShabbyDoo 17y ago
      I worked for a company that routinely provided user-uploaded child porn to the FBI along with user details. The EULA gave us the right to do this although I'm not sure how explicitly this was stated. I'm ok with this, but it's a slippery slope downward.
      • TeHCrAzY 17y ago
        Thats interesting. How do you avoid the liability of possessing child pornography? Invariablly, someone needs to see it before it can be passed on, and it has to be stored somewhere + communicated. Is there protections in your local laws?
        • 17y ago
• amackera 17y ago
  The problem with that motto is that "evil" is entirely subjective.
• gojomo 17y ago
  It's just been expanded. It's now, "don't be evil, dear users, or we'll get ya!"