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It seems like he's actually telling you, the user, not to be evil. Sad.
by jsm386 17y ago
It seems like he's actually telling you, the user, not to be evil. Sad.
- dhume 17y agoHiding 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 agoWhat, have you never planned a surprise party? People need privacy not only for nefarious ends.
- pohl 17y agoSo 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.
- robobenjie 17y agoIt 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 agoI 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 agoThats 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?
- ShabbyDoo 17y agoWe off-shored the manual review of submitted images! And, it was perceived by management/legal that proactive cooperation with the FBI would alleviate the risk of being charged with distribution of child pornography. As someone peripherally involved, I had to sign a release stating that I would not claim harassment because my job involved viewing sexually explicit images. Never in my life had I imagined writing an email to a VP stating that I had just burned a CD of kiddie porn for her only to receive a terse "Thanks!" message back. We did this on a dedicated machine which could easily be wiped/re-imaged.
- TeHCrAzY 17y agoSounds like very shakey ground. I would quite vigourously avoid pissing anyone off who has proof you (or anyone else for that matter) was directly involved with these materials. Literal interpretation of the law could see you registered as a sex offender + jail time. What a rediculous concept :/
- jrwoodruff 17y agoMaybe no one in the western world cares about your search for nurse+handcuffs, but what about in China? Iran? How do they comply with the laws in those countries?