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Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

theintercept.com

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Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#111

Post by aikah »

tomlu wrote: post #43

Disclaimer: I work for Google. I also think that there is an anti-Google bias on hacker news, holding Google to a standard not applied to others and taking any excuse to roll out the same old tired rants in response to almost any Google post (DAE Google Reader etc). If what I read is true then this is the first thing that has truly rocked my confidence that the company generally tries to do the right thing (while mak…

> holding Google to a standard not applied to others

When Microsoft was deemed "evil" under Balmer, Google acted like it was a "cool startup which didn't do evil" and used that positive PR to grow as they were seen more "ethical" than the competition. That's why they are held to higher standards today.

Microsoft for instance never claimed they had any sort of moral compass other than the morals of making money.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#112

Post by krn »

JoshMnem wrote: post #34

> "The Dragonfly memo reveals that a prototype of the censored search engine was being developed as an app for both Android and iOS devices, and would force users to sign in so they could use the service. The memo confirms, as The Intercept first reported last week, that users’ searches would be associated with their personal phone number. The memo adds that Chinese users’ movements would also be stored, along with t…

I installed Chromium on Ubuntu today, and on the first run was given an opportunity to opt out from Google's personalized ads being shown to me based on my entire web browsing history. It was that moment when I realized, that what I had just installed was not primarily a web browser, but a Google application with a web browsing feature built-in. Because everything in it was built to optimize Google's ad revenue. It even had an ad blocker enabled by default, which made Google's ads stand out by disabling the ads by others.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#113

Post by binomialxenon »

tapoxi wrote: post #37
JoshMnem wrote: post #34

> "The Dragonfly memo reveals that a prototype of the censored search engine was being developed as an app for both Android and iOS devices, and would force users to sign in so they could use the service. The memo confirms, as The Intercept first reported last week, that users’ searches would be associated with their personal phone number. The memo adds that Chinese users’ movements would also be stored, along with t…

Or you could just use Chromium.

I'd rather non-Chrome browsers such as Firefox and Safari keep some market share so we don't end up with too many "Only works in Chrome" webistes.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#114

Post by matz1 »

wrs wrote: post #21

Ouch. It must be really fun for Googlers to hear their company is working so hard to repress dissidents trying to reveal its secret project to help China repress dissidents.

Like with any other issue, there are always be haters and supporters. You assume all googlers oppose this ? I'm sure there are still many googlers that are fine to work on this. I'm not googlers but I would have no issue on working with something like this.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#115

Post by tclancy »

amckinlay wrote: post #109

[flagged]

Comment about stopped clock, including unnecessary quotation marks. Using political label as a meaning-free pejorative. “Connecting” it all with yarn on an old National Geographic map and a bit of swearing to indicate This Is Important.

Discourse in the year 2018.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#116

Post by 394549 »

tomlagier wrote: post #87
Aunche wrote: post #72

All this outrage about about Google wanting to censor search in China is even less productive than men being angry at women having abortions. At least with abortions, men can claim to speak for the fetus. Even if Google expands makes a censored search engine for China, at worst it maintains the status quo. I'm sure you could come up with a philosophical argument to why it's bad, but it definitely has no weight over m…

I agree so much. How about we hear from some Chinese people about how they feel about the developments? The few comments I've seen have expressed excitement and highlighted the extreme issues with Baidu. The outrage seems to be coming entirely from people with no real stake in this news. I absolutely believe there's a discussion worth having about the extent capitulating to authoritarian demands is morally and practi…

> How about we hear from some Chinese people about how they feel about the developments?

How open do you think a typical Chinese person is going to be with you about how they think about their government's censorship? Unless they know and trust you really well, they're probably not going to criticize it to you even if they hate it. There are strong Chinese cultural taboos against criticizing your in-group in front of outsiders. These taboos operate from the level of the family up to the level of the country. See:

https://cn.nytimes.com/world/20170524/chinese-student-fresh-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuping_Yang_commencement_spee...

> The outrage seems to be coming entirely from people with no real stake in this news.

Everyone has a stake in this news. The Chinese government has shown increasing willingness to strong-arm Western companies actions in the West by holding their Chinese operations hostage. See a notable example in its recent actions over the treatment of Taiwan on airline websites (https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/25/news/companies/taiwan-china...).

Totally ignoring the morality of enabling authoritarian censorship in a foreign country, non-Chinese still have an interest keeping the domestic influence of that censorship regime to a minimum.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#117

Post by zanmat0 »

whatever1 wrote: post #77
Aunche wrote: post #72

All this outrage about about Google wanting to censor search in China is even less productive than men being angry at women having abortions. At least with abortions, men can claim to speak for the fetus. Even if Google expands makes a censored search engine for China, at worst it maintains the status quo. I'm sure you could come up with a philosophical argument to why it's bad, but it definitely has no weight over m…

Sure why not provide the best tracking technologies to the worst regimes. I would also go even further and provide them services for the development of nuclear arsenal. Imagine all of these jobs that will be created in the US.

The "worst regimes"?

Oh my sweet summer child.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#118

Post by wu-ikkyu »

Aunche wrote: post #72

All this outrage about about Google wanting to censor search in China is even less productive than men being angry at women having abortions. At least with abortions, men can claim to speak for the fetus. Even if Google expands makes a censored search engine for China, at worst it maintains the status quo. I'm sure you could come up with a philosophical argument to why it's bad, but it definitely has no weight over m…

Sure, but it's not about "being productive", it's about maintaining self image/identity.

Google proclaims itself as a moral thought leader of the world, but actions speak louder than words.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#119

Post by amckinlay »

devoply wrote: post #36
wrs wrote: post #21

Ouch. It must be really fun for Googlers to hear their company is working so hard to repress dissidents trying to reveal its secret project to help China repress dissidents.

Fact of the matter is that there is a Chinese internet and a US internet. Going forward there will be a Chinese internet, that some authoritarian countries will adopt that are a part of the Chinese sphere of influence. American companies, and the American government through them want a foothold on that internet. This is the only way for them to do so. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/20/eric-schmidt-ex-google-ceo-p...

That sounds like a suspiciously confident prediction given the nature of the internet.

Re: Google Suppresses Memo Revealing Plans to Closely Track Search Users in China

#120

Post by amckinlay »

kgwxd wrote: post #103
John_KZ wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google is selling out for nothing. I don't understand the notion. Google already censors anything they like with very advanced methods that even provide them with plausible deniability, high specificity etc. And I bet they're better than the Chinese at tracking literally everything you do online and connecting that with your real, offline identity, complete with your entire social network graph, your biometrics, SSN…

Censorship is a government action. When people and private companies do it, it's called filtering. There's a world of difference between an individual or company having control over data vs. a government. People and companies with heavy influence can mess things up a quite a bit, sure, but they can't arrest, imprison, sentence or put anyone to death.

And this time we actually have legitimate, real, censorship to fight.
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