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Google: Open Letter to Australians

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Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#191

Post by mgraczyk »

chottocharaii wrote: post #140
mgraczyk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody who works on ranking and personalization products, I can confidently assure you that you would not prefer a less personalized experience. You don't have to take my word for it though, you can opt-out of personalization on Google here: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols Try it for a month and see if you prefer it.

Lol, you can ‘confidently assure’ huh? Clicking that link, turns out I’ve had all of those personalisation features switched off for nearly a year. Don’t be so confident that your ranking/personalisation products are universally appreciated

Fortunately I have mountains of data and do not have to trust anecdote and comments. Almost all users self-report higher satisfaction and they behave in ways consistent with strongly preferring personalization.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#192

Post by Foxheart »

ssss11 wrote: post #184
sthnblllII wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point was that if you’re unwilling to stop something, that is politically equivalent to wanting it.

I’d genuinely like to know how everday citizens get their government to do the rght thing. It seems everywhere around the world they just do what benefits themselves. people protest, and get hit with rubber bullets, but nothing seems to change.

I've been wondering the same thing lately. The solution isn't with protesting in the street, even if you can topple the government, you just get more tyranny from the next crowd.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#193

Post by hkt »

I tried to work out why I'm so unbelievably torn about this, and I've concluded that it's because this is a "whoever wins, we lose" circumstance. Both the press and Google are nightmarish creatures.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#194

Post by [deleted] »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #102
cyphar wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I vocally opposed that piece of legislation (and are included in the public comments collection), that is not an accurate description of the law. The government that can force you to add backdoors in certain circumstances, and you cannot tell people about it. Yes that is utterly abhorrent, but that isn't the same as "government mandated backdoors in every software product" -- though funnily enough, the US Senat…

If you aren't allowed to know the difference, there's no meaningful difference, and certainly not a difference worth defending.

[deleted]

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#195

Post by ehsankia »

ignoramous wrote: post #135
discordance wrote: post #119

Google evil etc etc aside, they have been decent custodians of their users data. I don't really want to trust Google, but they behave much better than the Australian government, who recently admitted they spy on their citizens [0], can coerce citizens and companies to install backdoors into their companies software [1]. I trust Murdoch less than the government, and much much less than Google. Remember when Murdoch in…

(rant) > they behave much better... https://medium.com/@rossformaine/i-was-googles-head-of-inter... > decent custodians of their users data They cannot protect that data from law and enforcement no matter what. De-anonymized, aggregated, ephemeral... no matter which way you look at it, data they collect is a ticking time-bomb. And because they amass so much, others that have similar business models are forced to foll…

Just some relevant context to that page, the person there left Google and is now running for office, so I would think twice about the claims they make.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#196

Post by hutzlibu »

ssss11 wrote: post #166
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In regards to parent commenters [0] link, this is the story that got a journalist's home raided by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) because she received leaked information (that turned out to be 100% correct) that the Department for Home Affairs was planning to allow the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) to spy on Australian citizens. Directly quoting from the linked article: ASD powers have been a source of co…

How do you draw the conclusion that the Australian people want this behaviour? As far as I can tell none us want this but once elected the politicians fail to action what the people want. Over and over again...

Politicians are indeed afraid of public outrage.

But there is none (relevant) enough.

Because most people care most about stability.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#197

Post by smcl »

sthnblllII wrote: post #168
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In regards to parent commenters [0] link, this is the story that got a journalist's home raided by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) because she received leaked information (that turned out to be 100% correct) that the Department for Home Affairs was planning to allow the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) to spy on Australian citizens. Directly quoting from the linked article: ASD powers have been a source of co…

> this seems to be the Government that the Australian people want. I can assure you it’s not. The problem with Republics is that “one man one vote” does not translate into the majority getting what it wants. The loudest and most well organized political forces will get their way, even ones small in number or popular support. State security services have a long history of involvement in politics and media in the Anglo…

Australia is not (yet?) a Republic

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#198

Post by sthnblllII »

ssss11 wrote: post #184
sthnblllII wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point was that if you’re unwilling to stop something, that is politically equivalent to wanting it.

I’d genuinely like to know how everday citizens get their government to do the rght thing. It seems everywhere around the world they just do what benefits themselves. people protest, and get hit with rubber bullets, but nothing seems to change.

Unlike the Ron Popiel rotisserie oven, politics isn’t “set and forget”. There’s no magic system where, once established, good honest people can ignore politics and have effective government.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#199

Post by cyphar »

rswail wrote: post #163
cyphar wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your broader point, though it should be noted that public broadcasters (namely ABC and SBS) will not be able to make use of certain rights under the new legislation (namely the forced arbitration system). So it does give slightly more favour to private media organisations -- though you could argue allowing the ABC or SBS to exercise those powers would violate their own charters (their duty is not to be c…

Where in their charter does it say that it is one of their duties not to be competitive with other media? The only mention in the charter (it's really short) is: > (2) In the provision by the Corporation of its broadcasting services within Australia: > >(a) the Corporation shall take account of: > >(i) the broadcasting services provided by the commercial and community sectors of the Australian broadcasting system; It…

It's not that the charter says "you cannot be competitive with other media", it's that their charter doesn't say "you should be competitive with private media". The ABC and SBS exist to provide both information and entertainment with a specific focus -- not to try to be the most highly-rated channel in Australia. As a result, the ABC or SBS using the new powers under the proposed legislation wouldn't fall under their charter -- because the purpose of the legislation is to rectify an (alleged) power imbalance in the agreements between news companies and digital media.

On balance (reading my comment again), I should probably have phrased it as "it is not their duty to compete with privately-owned media" rather than "[it is] their duty not to".

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#200

Post by ehsankia »

sthnblllII wrote: post #179
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #164

Google should just de-list News Corp and the other big media companies that dominate the Australian media industry and who often manipulate elections for their own benefit with one sided heavily biased coverage. Give some breathing space to the smaller players.

Wouldn't that just be Google manipulating coverage for Google’s benefit? I don’t think Google should be blessing any publishers with special “news section” status. Let websites compete organically. Any media with finance capital backing is going to be biased in favor of wars and against labor.

There's a difference between giving special treatment and fully de-listing, kinda like what happened in Germany and Spain with Google News. This is a direct and targeted attack by NewsCorp, abusing their influence in australian politics to force a bill that benefits them. Why should Google help someone that is trying their best to attack them?
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