Google chief: Only miscreants worry about net privacy

Stolly said:
There you go. Privacy is criminal.
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it is in some peoples minds.

lets all sit in glass houses NAKED

just to prove we are not terrorist pedo's :p even though im joking when i say that its weird that i even wrote 'to prove we are not' .
i used to feel it was innocent until proven guilty.
 
That he didn't mean bank and credit card details goes without saying. The only persons caring about the contents of your email is 'you' and whoever sent it to you. The rest of the world couldn't give a crap about Lorna and Big Jim's holiday piccies, Emma's first uni shots, your penis needing some extra size, that girl you're secretly been mailing or you adressing your mother as Mommy in your emails to her.

As for what you google, perhaps Schmidt has a point. If you have nothing to hide, why does it matter?

Before someone jumps on me, I personally like operating privately online, but if push comes to shove, I have nothing to hide.

Gah, going to bed now as my typing is getting lazy and spelling errors creeping in.
 
So the data protection act means nothing to these people??

It sickens me how so many people come out with this argument, it's straight out of some dystopian nightmare.
 
If that's an accurate statement of what he said then he's a hypocritical tool, no point in dressing this up. Of course I've got things I don't want the World to know about, not because I'm in any way ashamed of them but simply because I want, and should be able to have, a private life.

Google may be a good search engine but I've got distinct reservations about their aims/operating practices and always have, this doesn't do much to convince me I am wrong.
 
regulus said:
That he didn't mean bank and credit card details goes without saying. The only persons caring about the contents of your email is 'you' and whoever sent it to you. The rest of the world couldn't give a crap about Lorna and Big Jim's holiday piccies, Emma's first uni shots, your penis needing some extra size, that girl you're secretly been mailing or you adressing your mother as Mommy in your emails to her.

As for what you google, perhaps Schmidt has a point. If you have nothing to hide, why does it matter?

Before someone jumps on me, I personally like operating privately online, but if push comes to shove, I have nothing to hide.

Gah, going to bed now as my typing is getting lazy and spelling errors creeping in.
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That he meant browsing habits is just as bad. Find your car insurance premiums inexplicably go up after browsing for a garage that carries out performance tuning ?

Whats wrong, nothing to hide huh ?
 
Did you know they want you to use Google DNS now as well ?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12...le_public_dns/

Not only with their own browser, their own DNS. I wonder if one day we find it hard to get to the websites that Google doesn't want you to see ? We already know that Google makes things disappear from search results if the right government says so. What if major ISP's take money from Google to use their DNS ? For none tech-savvy internet users (ie the vast majority) Google could make sites just un-exist.

While handing over your browsing history to who knows who.
 
Stolly said:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/
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Heh, just a *tad* misleading. All they did was refuse to give interviews to CNET reporters:

"Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News reporters"

Rather than blacklist them from Google which is what is heavily implied.

If someone posted Spie's home address on here with some family snaps, he'd get perma'd off the face of the earth and everyone would agree with it.

Back to The Register:

"If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines - including Google - do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."

He's just telling the truth, that surprisingly enough they are subject to the law of the land, so that if there's something you are *really* paranoid about people finding out, perhaps you shouldn't do it on the net. It's common sense advice not an ominous threat.

"CNBC asks Schmidt: "People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they be?" But he answers by scoffing at those who don't trust Google at all."

Notice how they blatantly omit what he actually said but sum it up as "scoffing". Heh.
 
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There are loads of people that care about your details. Bullys, theres all the furore over facebook, but the victims of it shouldnt be allowed to be private. Stalkers. Marketeers. Hundreds of people organisations want all the details they can get about you. They could analyse your texts, emails to build a detailed character profile on you so that they know you better than your friends do and then use that to manipulate you in certain ways(I'm not talking conspiracy stuff I'm talking they send you information, about a certain product at certain time which fits exactly what you didnt know you wanted, programs tailored to your tastes to keep you watching for just that little bit longer).

A detailed character profile could be used like those psychic letters(derren brown), except way more cleverly accurate than those cheap parlour tricks so that whatever it promises you wouldnt be able to help to be tempted to buy whatever it is they are selling unless you are of the strongest willpower.

Would you like complete strangers, to call you by your name and then try to sell something very specific to your tastes and perhaps a bit embarrasing, but using language which you agree a little bit with.

People are interested in other people its what we do, its what these new fangled things like twitter is all about. People are interested in all the pointless information about You. Given the power some will definitely use anything even slightly bad about you. And you might think you have nothing to worry about but people can use the most trivial of things to beat you with. "Oh look you have a tiny zit on your nose haha". "Whats that pic of you using your mobile in your car, oh, you were only moving it to stop it falling off the dashboard? the photo doesnt say that, your nicked". You always have something to fear of what others think you have done wrong. Anything can be manipulated, falsified, when its digital.

The less privacy people have the more people will pick at one another over the most miniscule of flaws, or abberations. Large proportions of the population will normalize, homogenise, very few wacky or extreme thoughts will be born. Less likely for wonderous breakthrough technology or new great thinkers or great comedians.

Probably.
 
Calabi said:
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That kind of privacy is nothing to do with Google. Google is just an index of other sites. If you get info from Facebook, forums, Photobucket accounts whatever, that's the lack of security on THOSE sites that is to blame, or your own lack of competence in setting up privacy options.

The only private info Google stores is your search history (and email records if you happen to use Gmail.) The government has the power to seize those if they have due cause, just like any other site.
 
Ziggy said:
Heh, just a *tad* misleading. All they did was refuse to give interviews to CNET reporters:

"Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News reporters"

Rather than blacklist them from Google which is what is heavily implied.
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when Cnet posted some of his private details that they got off Google he blacklisted their reporters for a year.

I did say reporters and not from Google
 
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