News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:G is for Google by jsnell on Monday August 10, 2015 @06:37PM (#10037927)
I don't think it's quite comparable though. This is chopping off companies with essentially no synergies with the core business, which are kept in a single monolithic entity. If anything the association is often negative, with the assumption that the only reason Google owns a business (e.g. Nest, Fiber) is to hoover up people's private information.

Now, there would be insane ways of splitting the company. Say putting building and operating data centers into a separate company from the company using the data centers to run services. Or splitting Android or Chrome into a separate company that'd then be funded by selling the default search engine setting to the highest bidder. If that kind of thing happens, it'd be women and children first into the lifeboats.

Re:G is for Google by wowamit on Tuesday August 11, 2015 @04:01AM (#10039627)
Agreed. And I hope that does happen. This is the best chance for Google to clear out the air around all the privacy and transparency issues it has been tackling. However I do wonder if that indeed is the plan.

For example, Google would not want to miss on the data from its Fiber or Auto or Nest projects say. It is too valuable to not include as part of a user's profile.

If anything, I feel it can lead to just making the situation even more muddy. What happens to all the Terms and conditions? Privacy policies? Would they, or even can they, stay merged?