Google Chief: If you care about your privacy you're a criminal

[isukianime]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/07/schmidt_on_privacy/

If you're concerned about Google retaining your personal data, then you must be doing something you shouldn't be doing. At least that's the word from Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," Schmidt tells CNBC, sparking howls of incredulity from the likes of Gawker

But the bigger news may be that Schmidt has actually admitted there are cases where the search giant is forced to release your personal data.

"If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines - including Google - do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."

There's also the possibility of subpoenas. And hacks. But if any of this bothers you, you should be ashamed of yourself. According to Eric Schmidt.

Gawker highlights the irony of Schmidt's typically haughty proclamations. After all, this is the man who banned CNet for a year after the news site published information about him it had gleaned from, yes, Google.

But the larger point here is that Schmidt isn't even addressing the issue at hand. Per usual. When the privacy question appears, Google likes to talk about the people asking the questions. But the problem lies elsewhere: with the millions upon millions blissfully unaware of the questions.

If you're concerned about your online privacy, you can always put the kibosh on Google's tracking cookies. You can avoid signing in to Google accounts. And, yes, you can avoid using Google for anything Eric Schmidt thinks you shouldn't be doing. But most web users don't even realize Google is hoarding their data.

CNBC asks Schmidt: "People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they be?" But he answers by scoffing at those who don't trust Google at all.

Not that you'd expect anything less. As always, Schmidt's holier-than-thou attitude is wonderfully amusing. Except that it's not. ®

[Xiong Chiamiov]

El Reg is a bunch of sensationalist BS.

[mgz]

meh your thread title and thereg are kinda trying to pointlessly throw him under the bus.

Its an opinion of a guy at the company who makes LOTS OF FUCKING MONEY selling the not so private, private information.
So of course he is gonna defend it since its one of the ways they make alot of money.

And why the retard at cnbc doesnt throw it right back at him and say things give extreme examples like cameras focusing on every single house  in neighborhoods mounted on telephone poles and constantly observed.

They are blatant violations of peoples privacy, however he obviously must not mind since you could only be a criminal if you minded, or must be doing stuff you dont want others to know about.


Either way hes entitled to his opinion its extremely unlikely he firmly believes the nonsense he spouts and just does it because its good for the company.

[isukianime]

Google's privacy polices have always been bad. It's the main reason why I only use google for searching and throw away email addresses. There's no way I'm using the DNS servers they published after those comments.

[wolkec]

i think he just said that cus they dont want to waste their time blocking ur private shite of the google search engine

[temuchin]

funny that site is running google ads.   just checked with ad-blocker plus.
lol; when in doubt employ Tor.   

[isukianime]

funny that site is running google ads.   just checked with ad-blocker plus.
lol; when in doubt employ Tor.   

Tor is too slow. I just use a VPN service.

[carniska]

I think they have false reasoning in that article (~Eric Schmidt). I don't care about Google gathering info of what I'm searching. But I care about advertisements (I hate sponsored links ~so I'm using adblock) and unaccurate/random search results regarding the data they have collected -- when you are logged in/using cookies in google search. The search engine behaves differently when you use your friends or some other public computers eg. in library. The first ~few results may be exact, but then it starts to variate. And occasionally when your search behaviour changes, google fails.

Google learns from your searches and it tries to give as accurate results as possible to your taste and regarding your previous search behaviour and what you have clicked -- or something -- as well as providing more accurate advertisement. So the best way to use Google search is to use it only in your computer or login to your Google account (or erase the gathered data when your search behaviour changes). In other hand it's not fair setup. This is the reason why I sometimes use other search engines when I'm using more exceptional keywords or try to find 'rare content'/'page'.

The article tries to courage you to accept and use google with privacy content. And if you wont accept it, they call you as criminal. My point of view differs regarding how the privacy data affects to searches and why the privacy thing is sometimes bad for the actual search results. Criminal acts are different - eg. I can see Eric Schmidt offending my human rights when I'm browsing web via google and he calls me criminal when my search behaviour changes and I want to clear or prefer not to use my private data regarding search results. I'm not creating the links to criminal sites, Google search engine is (check the screenshot where you find out that browsing anonymously/clean browser setup,  google provides direct links to rapidshare/filetube ~its not my doing // and on the contrary, it's so obvious that I'm using torrents and google search engine gives more accurate results to my taste when I'm using Googles private data xD ) So lets sue the guy

simple example (not the best one)
google chrome: anonymous/incognito
firefox: logged to google account


Edit: with this example when I log to my account, the result is more accurate to my taste ~obvious. But when I'm using google anonymously or from other computer, I need to search with command: "robotech novel" -amazon -buy -shop +"Jack McKinney". And sometimes Google fails with + and - additions. As well it fails when my search behaviour changes.

Hope you get the point what I'm trying to express...

[bloody000]

What he said is very British(If you have nothing to hide...).

[molbjerg]

Unfortuntaly it's not just a British idea, it's global.

It's generally a generational thing I find.

[temuchin]

Tor is too slow. I just use a VPN service.

Tor is quite slow- recently "tested" it out on the chan networks.
i had used a VPN based in Germany (forget name) for torrents a while back but the speeds albeit faster than TOR
weren't acceptable.

[xShadow]

My google email address is my main address. After reading this, I must say that I don't really care about what they do, as long as they're not combing through my emails for passwords to sites and shit. I mean, seriously, you guys expected Google to just be a non-profit organization or something? Fuck no. If they want to compete with something like Microsoft, they have to bring in money from something. That something is information. That's fine by me, as long as I'm not paying a dime for their services (which are many, and those many are all convenient). So far, I have definitely never been hurt by their privacy policies.

On the other hand, I think the stance this guy (Schmidt) took was extremely retarded. He should have come straight out and said, "Yes, we have to sell some commodity in order keep our organization afloat, and for us that is generally information about people's search histories and such... blablablablabla." and then, "We also have to keep some records because they are required by law."

Well then again I'm not a pro company manager so what the hell do I know. I just know that I don't really much care about what this article does. The way the guy (writer) approaches it seems awfully biased, too. It lowers his credibility a lot.

[Neco]

While I am certainly not trying to hold the register up any higher than it deserves.

The underlying point is the fact that a man in a position of significant power even made this statement.  He has the power to make and change policies on what they sell, or how they cooperate with authorities, or anything else they may do with your search history, or personal e-mail correspondence, or whatever else they offer through services.

If those are his personal views, that's fine.  But he appeared on a show, in the capacity of a person representing Google,  and that is as good as saying "Google hath decreed".  This is customer service / public relations 101 -  you do NOT say shit like that  to/about your customers.    Now we aren't really customers of Google as much as we are "users" but the analogy is a close one.

Imagine if a world leader stood up and said this.. Or Bill Gates said this?

There would be a shit storm so fucking big.

[Lupin]

Use Bing

[nstgc]

You can always opt out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMChO0qNbkY&fmt=18

[rheffera]

Use Bing

You. cant. be. serious. Ive tried using it. I found it to be a unfriendly; inaccurate and hard to use google wanna be.

And besides; i trust micro$oft even less than google.

[Lupin]

Use Bing

You. cant. be. serious. Ive tried using it. I found it to be a unfriendly; inaccurate and hard to use google wanna be.

And besides; i trust micro$oft even less than google.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9142106/Mozilla_exec_suggests_Firefox_users_move_to_Bing_cites_Google_privacy_stance

Bing keeps your history for about 4 weeks. Google will keep it for 6 months. Which one will you use from a privacy standpoint?

[rheffera]

Either one, because there is no such thing as privacy in today's world.

[Onoz]

While I am certainly not trying to hold the register up any higher than it deserves.

The underlying point is the fact that a man in a position of significant power even made this statement.  He has the power to make and change policies on what they sell, or how they cooperate with authorities, or anything else they may do with your search history, or personal e-mail correspondence, or whatever else they offer through services.

If those are his personal views, that's fine.  But he appeared on a show, in the capacity of a person representing Google,  and that is as good as saying "Google hath decreed".  This is customer service / public relations 101 -  you do NOT say shit like that  to/about your customers.    Now we aren't really customers of Google as much as we are "users" but the analogy is a close one.

Imagine if a world leader stood up and said this.. Or Bill Gates said this?

There would be a shit storm so fucking big.

Then we come to this whole argument of users vs consumers,
*sighhh*

personally I just change my email about every month or two
register it from public ip with nonsense names like
"Hamster in the Rain"

I cant be without their services at the moment

Here's an interesting discussion though,

(click to show/hide)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2403121/posts

The real beef of the article is "HT Slight Paranoia 8 Million Reasons for Real Surveillance Oversight"

[Aneroph]

Use Bing

Seconded. Bing is actually about 3 times faster than google anyways (Go ahead ping it) with better image searches and the same freaking internet results as google. This combined with the 4 week info hording policy makes Bing FAR superior. I'm not a Microsoft advocate, but as long as google has been around why was Bing able to vastly improve on the system in one try? To put it in perspective: Bing is to Google as Firefox is to Internet Explorer.