Big Brother & The Internet

[Ant]

http://battellemedia.com/archives/002245.php

Don't Look Now, But It's Happening

From my book, written a year or so ago:

As we move our data to the servers at Amazon.com, Hotmail.com,
Yahoo.com, and Gmail.com, we are making an implicit bargain, one
that the public at large is either entirely content with, or, more likely,
one that most have not taken much to heart.

That bargain is this: we trust you to not do evil things with our
information. We trust that you will keep it secure, free from unlaw-
ful government or private search and seizure, and under our control
at all times. We understand that you might use our data in aggregate
to provide us better and more useful services, but we trust that you
will not identify individuals personally through our data, nor use
our personal data in a manner that would violate our own sense of
privacy and freedom.

That’s a pretty large helping of trust we’re asking companies to
ladle onto their corporate plate. And I’m not sure either we or they
are entirely sure what to do with the implications of such a transfer.
Just thinking about these implications makes a reasonable person’s
head hurt.

From the Mercury News, today:

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google Inc. to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content inaccessible to minors.

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for one million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

The Mountain View-based search engine opposes releasing the information on a variety of grounds, saying it would violate the privacy rights of its users and reveal company trade secrets, according to court documents.

Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government's effort ``vigorously.''

...The government indicated that other, unspecified search engines have agreed to release the information,

but not Google (emphasis mine).

Of course the Bush administration started with the cover of "fighting child porn." Do you think that's all they've asked for? Of course not.

Bravo, Google, for fighting this. Don't give up the fight. It's not just about this one request. This is a major, major moment. And shame on the other engines for not standing up and fighting.

(And while I'm tossing out kudos, bravo on the two tier Internet stance, as well.)

[Eihtball]

Anyone remember how back in 2000, Bush's campaign staff registered a whole bunch of internet domains such as bushblows.com and bushsucks.com so that other people couldn't use them?

[Don Rizzle]

^lmao

[dexter]

Bush is a Clown

[virtuoso]

This good guy bad guy paradigm continues unabaited and yet we now hear how those good guys google are helping the chinese government out by suppressing information from chinese citizens.

[Don Rizzle]

u gotta abide by the law of the land normal google is blocked in china anyways....

[Ant]

This good guy bad guy paradigm continues unabaited and yet we now hear how those good guys google are helping the chinese government out by suppressing information from chinese citizens.

They aren't supressing information.  The choice is this, no google, or filtered google.  Google isn't doing anything new to stop the spread of information in China.  Prior to Google this information and a lot of other information wasnt available. 

It's ironic how more people are aware of Google filtering results in China than half the corrupt shit our politicians do in this country.  Did you know Yahoo! and MSN are already filtering results in China?  Google was just the last to hold off.  Sometimes I swear people hate 'do-gooders.'  For all the amazing services google provides, and their strict adherence to a moral code, everyone wants to pile on when no one said shit about Yahoo or MSN doing the same thing?

Did you know one of Google's most popular products doesn't even generate revenue? 
http://news.google.com/

And you certainly haven't seen Yahoo or MSN creating MSN Scholar.
http://scholar.google.com/

Nor do they sponsor a massive open-source development effort:
http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html

Not to mention Google sponsors development of Firefox and Openoffice.org

And gives away plenty of other revenue-free products: Picasa, Google Earth, Google Talk

[virtuoso]

Ant indeed I did know that, I knew about yahoo aol etc. However what I am saying is this.....google are trying to put themselves out there as a champion of freedom of data and privacy when in actual fact they to have been giving info to the american government for years and now they are suppressing information in china also. Again what I was pointing out is the spin I mentioned google because they are creating an illusion of fighting for peoples right to privacy.

[virtuoso]

And as for Bill Gates yes I am too aware of that shit head also, he is one of the voices championing the internet 2 

[virtuoso]

Finally I agree with your irony but I am too aware of the corrupt crooks who call themselves politicians here domestically in England and for that matter in america also. I agree with your premise about why the hell would any of us agree to allow our personal information to be placed in the hands of these crooks. Hence the reason why the government dictating to all of here in england and britain that from such a date we must have id is so ridiculous and sickening as they have already admitted that to finance id cards they will be selling out information to third parties. If your wondering how dangerous this can be then just consider your insurance premiums and how they will rocket when these corporations can get hold of whatever personal health records they want. 

[Don Rizzle]

Ant indeed I did know that, I knew about yahoo aol etc. However what I am saying is this.....google are trying to put themselves out there as a champion of freedom of data and privacy when in actual fact they to have been giving info to the american government for years and now they are suppressing information in china also. Again what I was pointing out is the spin I mentioned google because they are creating an illusion of fighting for peoples right to privacy.

lol u know goggle reads peoples email right? 

[Dubz]

the sad thing about this is that nobody in the world can do shit about this except the politicians. I gotta agree with dexer's post. bush is a clown.

[Ant]

Ant indeed I did know that, I knew about yahoo aol etc. However what I am saying is this.....google are trying to put themselves out there as a champion of freedom of data and privacy when in actual fact they to have been giving info to the american government for years and now they are suppressing information in china also. Again what I was pointing out is the spin I mentioned google because they are creating an illusion of fighting for peoples right to privacy.

Google has not been giving information to the American government for years, they've only been in existence since 1998 and to date they haven't given any information to the American Government.

I think this talk about Google being fake is ridiculous.  What exactly is everyone's standards for ethical business practicies?  I'm not really sure how much better you can get than Google.  Seriously, tell me one other company with a market cap over 100 billion that is more ethical and socially conscious than google? 

You know who is loving this bullshit?  All the right-wingers, that is why this Google China thing is getting attention, right-wing corporate america strongly dislikes google and is loving the pile-on. 

Google came out and said fuck wall-street, fuck business schools, fuck the usual greedy corporate bullshit, fuck all the silly business theories that permeate the NY Times Best Sellers list, and fuck anti-social right wing ideology.  So now all these people that Google offended with their 'do no evil' theory of how to do business wants to pile on, and the sad thing is other people are falling for it. 

One of the Top Conservative 'blog rings' is running a 'Google Watch' operation to alert everyone in the right about how Google is being unethical - http://blogs.pajamasmedia.com/china_syndrome/ - seriously, how dumb is the left?  You finally find a company that has the influence and desire to change corporate America, and what do you want to do?  Pile on and join the scared right wing elitists that are only more than happy to trash the hell out of Google for fear of what may happen when people start to realize that ethical companies that care more about innovation and service, than profiteering are the winners in the long run.

[virtuoso]

Google shares personal information it collects with third-party companies.

False. Although the company admits it will share information in dire circumstances, such as when complying with law enforcement and the courts, or to prevent fraud or imminent harm or to secure its own network, it does not share information with organizations that do not comply with its privacy policies.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Business/story?id=1541108

So much for not sharing info