"[...] what would you do if Google required you to set up a user account, or enroll in a service [...] so that you could have more ‘personalized’ search results, and the occasional special offer?"
Um...
Don't Trust Google (2002)
11–20 of 87 posts
Re: Don't Trust Google (2002)
#12And 14 years later there still "is no evidence or even reason to suspect that Google is not being an honest broker. The searches give good results, the rankings seem fair, the service remains free, and we haven’t heard of anyone being arrested for running a dodgy query." So while the author is right about potential dangers mentioned in the penultimate paragraph, it's been more than a decade and those fears haven't re…
The evilness has been materialized, you just dont want to acknowledge it - Occupy Wallstreet was effectively dismantled, one of the biggest protest movements in modern time as well as Tea Party. The biggest thefts in history went by, quite efficiently put down - and you think that the NSA, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple were not complecent in those events? That the big data aboundant about the people was not u…
> A good college CompSci student with that data could pick out the troublemakers/leaders.
Occupy fell apart because it didn't have leaders. Or any coherent agenda. It was a bunch of people dissatisfied with the status quo without any realistic prescription for improving it.
The Tea Party at least knew what they wanted. Their problem was taking money from and thereby becoming owned by the entrenched Republican power brokers.
Neither of their failings had anything to do with Google.
Re: Don't Trust Google (2002)
#13And 14 years later there still "is no evidence or even reason to suspect that Google is not being an honest broker. The searches give good results, the rankings seem fair, the service remains free, and we haven’t heard of anyone being arrested for running a dodgy query." So while the author is right about potential dangers mentioned in the penultimate paragraph, it's been more than a decade and those fears haven't re…
Here's a few ways the post became true:
Tracking Google Apps for Education students and even paid Google Apps for Business emails to build ad profiles, making misleading statement to the public that they're not doing so, and then when it finally came to statements to federal court, lacking the dare to continue lying and finally confessing the truth and then claiming the consumer Gmail policy applied to Apps for Education data. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.ht...
Conspiring to kill SkyHook just with its outsized influence like Microsoft used to. http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-la...
Tracking the physical location of Android phones for ad purposes without properly informing users and disabling things like Google Now if you disable the tracking. http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/
Google employee access personal information of others. Google says it has fixed the issue, but how do we even know? Is there any legal safeguard against someone at Google reading your email? http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-tee...
Paid inclusion for shopping search results http://marketingland.com/once-deemed-evil-google-now-embrace...
Ranking Google+ reviews over Yelp results even if the user explicitly searches for Yelp http://www.searchenginejournal.com/yelp-complains-outranked-...
Decreasing contrast in the background of ads, this especially hurts older people as ability to see contrast decreases with age, and the FTC found that almost half the people fail to notice that there are ads on the page, thus forcing products that are first in the organic results to pay Google for ads.
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentional... http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/ftc-googles-ad-practice-i...
Re: Don't Trust Google (2002)
#14Seems like recently these anti-Google posts are being dredged up at a noticeable rate. Is there a reason behind it or is all just ad hoc? For instance I wonder how OP stumbled about the link.
That's an easy question to answer, I was trawling through the dusty attics of idlewords.com (feel free to go read A Morning in Iceland http://idlewords.com/2003/11/a_morning_in_iceland.htm), I found it amusingly prescient.
Re: Don't Trust Google (2002)
#15Seems like recently these anti-Google posts are being dredged up at a noticeable rate. Is there a reason behind it or is all just ad hoc? For instance I wonder how OP stumbled about the link.
Seems a little suspicious that this is the very first comment from a new account.
Re: Don't Trust Google (2002)
#16And 14 years later there still "is no evidence or even reason to suspect that Google is not being an honest broker. The searches give good results, the rankings seem fair, the service remains free, and we haven’t heard of anyone being arrested for running a dodgy query." So while the author is right about potential dangers mentioned in the penultimate paragraph, it's been more than a decade and those fears haven't re…
Here's a few ways the post became true: Tracking Google Apps for Education students and even paid Google Apps for Business emails to build ad profiles, making misleading statement to the public that they're not doing so, and then when it finally came to statements to federal court, lacking the dare to continue lying and finally confessing the truth and then claiming the consumer Gmail policy applied to Apps for Educa…
I'm sure you're aware that this collection of yours pertains to complaints of interested parties, and that if you'd bothered with any follow-through on these topics you'd have encountered a very different picture.
But seeing as you had a cherry picked list of the harshest (and incomplete) reportings at the ready, augmented with you're own slanted commentary my guess is that a "full picture" isn't what you're aiming for here.
Re: Don't Trust Google (2002)
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a few ways the post became true: Tracking Google Apps for Education students and even paid Google Apps for Business emails to build ad profiles, making misleading statement to the public that they're not doing so, and then when it finally came to statements to federal court, lacking the dare to continue lying and finally confessing the truth and then claiming the consumer Gmail policy applied to Apps for Educa…
I'm sure you're aware that this collection of yours pertains to complaints of interested parties, and that if you'd bothered with any follow-through on these topics you'd have encountered a very different picture. But seeing as you had a cherry picked list of the harshest (and incomplete) reportings at the ready, augmented with you're own slanted commentary my guess is that a "full picture" isn't what you're aiming f…
>if you'd bothered with any follow-through on these topics you'd have encountered a very different picture
Why don't you expound on that very different picture instead of such a hand wavy kneejerk dismissal without any reasoning or references?
Re: Don't Trust Google (2002)
#18Something like 5 out of the first 16 comments on this post were all from accounts (1 each) created under 1 hour ago. Weird.
Re: Don't Trust Google (2002)
#19Personally I do think Google is not perfect but I never liked things such as Scroogled.
Re: Don't Trust Google (2002)
#20I wrote about this last year. Somewhat similar.
http://prosehe.tumblr.com/post/64853725968/our-blind-faith-i...