An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#1

Post by genieyclo » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 7:48 PM UTC

An open letter to Eric Schmidt
vanelsas.wordpress.com

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#2

Post by jbrun » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 8:43 PM UTC

Corporations are amoral, they do what is in their interest; the people decide the morals (or laws) of their society. A lack of privacy is not Google's fault, they are simply respecting the laws.

Americans let the Patriot Act be passed into law, not Google. Stop blaming Google and start blaming your democratically elected government. People now have more privacy and liberty in continental Europe and Canada than they do in the US.

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#3

Post by tptacek » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 8:48 PM UTC

Did anyone actually learn something from this blog post? I'd be interested in hearing what it was.

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#4

Post by gojomo » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 9:10 PM UTC

In some sense, every email to or from a gmail user is an "open letter" to Eric Schmidt.

(No, I'm not implying that that he or the typical Googler does or would review private email... only that some non-null set of employees there, probably including the CEO if he were really determined to do so, could.)

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#5

Post by snprbob86 » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 9:16 PM UTC

Schmidt's quote is clearly out of context and overblown. Rather than crucifying the man, we should seek clarification of his position. Personally, I believe that his actual stance is along the lines of: "Google does everything it can to protect the privacy of users. Unfortunately, we are required to retain some data by law and some by practicality. If you are doing something you don't want known, the only way to be completely safe it to not put that data in the hands of others. However, if you had to put your private data in the hands of any major internet service company, I believe that Google is the safest choice."

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#6

Post by fserb » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 9:23 PM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #4

In some sense, every email to or from a gmail user is an "open letter" to Eric Schmidt. (No, I'm not implying that that he or the typical Googler does or would review private email... only that some non-null set of employees there, probably including the CEO if he were really determined to do so, could .)

What is the point you're trying to make? One could use your argument for any single entity in the world. "I'm not implying that Coca Cola's CEO does or would put poison on the beverages, only that some non-null set of employees there, probably including the CEO if he were really determined to do so, could." Replace Google/review private email with anything and you'll have a meaningful sentence: Obama/release nukes, kindergarten teachers/child abuse, etc, etc, etc...

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#7

Post by fserb » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 9:26 PM UTC

snprbob86 wrote: post #5

Schmidt's quote is clearly out of context and overblown. Rather than crucifying the man, we should seek clarification of his position. Personally, I believe that his actual stance is along the lines of: "Google does everything it can to protect the privacy of users. Unfortunately, we are required to retain some data by law and some by practicality. If you are doing something you don't want known, the only way to be c…

I cannot thank you enough for this comment. I've been hearing non-sense comments over this quote for a week now, including the original post on this thread.

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#8

Post by tedunangst » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 9:32 PM UTC

"If you have something you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing that in the first place."

maybe != definitely.

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#9

Post by skywalker » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 9:41 PM UTC

jbrun wrote: post #2

Corporations are amoral, they do what is in their interest; the people decide the morals (or laws) of their society. A lack of privacy is not Google's fault, they are simply respecting the laws. Americans let the Patriot Act be passed into law, not Google. Stop blaming Google and start blaming your democratically elected government. People now have more privacy and liberty in continental Europe and Canada than they d…

"Americans let the Patriot Act be passed into law, not Google. Stop blaming Google and start blaming your democratically elected government"

Just like Google is putting their lobbyists where their interests are in cases where government intervention (or lack of it) is hurting their business (net neutrality, open mobile applications, visas, wireless spectrum, etc), they should also fight against the Patriot Act.

If people don't feel comfortable using Google's products due to fear of government spying, they will restrict their search, clean their cookies, block adsense/analytics, etc, all of which will impact Google financially.

Re: An open letter to Eric Schmidt

#10

Post by felixc » Wed, Dec 09, 2009, 9:44 PM UTC

jbrun wrote: post #2

Corporations are amoral, they do what is in their interest; the people decide the morals (or laws) of their society. A lack of privacy is not Google's fault, they are simply respecting the laws. Americans let the Patriot Act be passed into law, not Google. Stop blaming Google and start blaming your democratically elected government. People now have more privacy and liberty in continental Europe and Canada than they d…

While I agree with you that the real solution is better privacy protections enshrined in law, I have to point out that you can't really derive an "ought" from an "is". In other words, the fact that corporations are amoral doesn't mean that Google ought to be amoral too, especially given their claim that they "do no evil". I think that's the author's point: he's not saying that they're doing anything illegal, just that they're failing to live up to the standards they've set for themselves.