I don't think it's so much about thing people to their companies but more about being transparent so people can form their own opinions. If people just accuse you of hiding that information it details the conversation anyway.
Just my opinion. I also work for Google and am pretty sure they also recommend being transparent when commenting on things related to the company although I admit it's been a while since I read the guidelines.
I'm very strongly against disclaimers for my personal opinions on random discussion forums , and will continue not to do so right up until i'm forced to (at which point, i'll probably just stop contributing). When I write or post articles in a public news setting or something, or get paid to write them, i'll be happy to.
When i'm just writing crap on HN, sorry, but no.
"presumably people will be worried you have an ulterior motive in trying to get people to think of Google in a positive light."
Which, again, should and does contribute literally nothing to a real discussion, much in the same way knowing a guy owns a 50 million dollar house does not make their opinions or viewpoints, or arguments, less valid on NIMBYism. Engage on the merits.
"but more about being transparent so people can form their own opinions".
People should not form opinions based on who other people work for, when they aren't speaking for their companies. This is precisely a type of bias we should be seeking to prevent. It adds no value to an intellectual discussion. It just gives a mechanism for smug self satisfaction by saying "hey, i don't have to care if he has a good point, he works for X so i can just pretend it's not a real argument"
"I also work for Google and am pretty sure they also recommend being transparent when commenting on things related to the company although I admit it's been a while since I read the guidelines.'
I'm very very very familiar with the guidelines google issues.
The irony is that by not disclosing the company you work for, you actually make it worse. If you disclose any conflicts of interest, then people will be less likely to accuse you of having an ulterior motive. I suppose it's a philosophical choice of living like how you want the world to be or how it is now and who am I to tell you how to live your life!
If he put "I work at Google", on every post that touches Google then we might as well go back to having signatures on every post like a web-forum.
While I agree that because of Google's intimate symbiosis with internet, it's nice to have transparency from employees when they protect Google, I don't think the Original Comment was protecting Google.
They were arguing that instead of being upset that Google can now get your data, in addition to [$OTHERCORP, ...], privacy advocates should be upset that any corp is getting the data.
Indeed when I said defending I didn't mean they were saying Google is right but rather moving the discussion away from having bad PR for Google, which is like defending the name of the company (even if it's justified). I admit that my vocabulary is rather limited so perhaps that is not the right word to use but hopefully you get my point.
When the company is Google (or of a similar scale) -- and that company claims to care about privacy (but sometimes engages in practices that suggest otherwise) -- then clearly that association is quite relevant. (Its not a huge oversight, but really, if you had put a standard disclaimer at the end of your comment it would have come off a lot more nicely).
But calling people "stupid" for pointing out that this association matters (when it obviously does) is just... "Google-y", I guess.
You have not given any reason the association actually matters here[1], nor engaged the argument on the merits Instead, you did precisely what i said would happen - character assassination for no reason. You also assert i called people stupid, which is also clearly false, I instead expressed that the notion that tying people to their companies would do anything useful is stupid.
[[1] It doesn't. You can engage the arguments on the merits whether it had my name or anyone else's. In fact, you'll see i didn't even express an argument past "it sucks they can sell info", and that i didn't give a shit about the complaint itself because it suggests that it's okay to sell it to certain people, when i feel it's not okay to sell it to anyone. I haven't actually seen anyone cogently disagree with this, and it's 100000000% irrelevant to where i work.
It obviously is, because these other someones don't have the same amount of information on you. It seems not unlikely to me (and probably others) that your difficulty in appreciating this point is employment related, even if you are arguing in good faith and are not consciously aware of it.
I don't disagree with you that the correct fix is to prohibit the sale of this information in general.
Sorry, but saying "it's stupid to do X" really is basically the same as saying... "people who do X are stupid". Or at least "they are, in that context, being stupid".
Either way, you said what you said -- and presumably you meant what you said -- so there's no point in trying to wiggle away from it.
You might think you are completely objective and unbiased, as do most others, and maybe you are. But, most people are fooling themselves a little. Nobody will admit to themselves, let alone others, that they work for someone evil.
So really, if you want a place of real discussion and debate, it's important to tie people to their companies in cases where they are participating in discussions about these companies.
No, they aren't, and it's horrendously biased to say that.
"So really, if you want a place of real discussion and debate, it's important to tie people to their companies in cases where they are participating in discussions about these companies. " No, it isn't, precisely because your premise is wrong. It's not just wrong, it's startlingly bad to me.
If your default position is "people's opinions are less valuable because they work for X", you really aren't going to do a good job of seeing multiple perspectives.
But given what you've written here, maybe you don't want to?
That doesn't even make sense. The op made no argument for or against google in any of this thread, and has only tried to clarify that. Defending yourself against the Google hating bandwagon is clueless hole digging? Did you even read any of the op's comments?
People are less objective about an entity who is paying them. There is nothing controversial about this. I'm surprised someone like you would even convince themselves otherwise.
>a random PR release by an organization devoted to lobbying on certain issues just doesn't bug me or make me care.
How ironic that you are trying to diminish this article by calling it a "random PR release" by a "lobbying organization".
Perhaps someone who didn't work at Google might call them a "privacy watchdog" looking out for consumers.
>just doesn't bug me or make me care.
Well, you cared enough to comment.
If you want official statements from me, go elsewhere.
If you want HN to be a place of real discussion and debate, it's stupid to try to tie people to their companies. I think very different from my company on quite a lot of issues, and i happily point that at too.
To your point, however, I didn't hand wave away anything. I said the real issue is "people can get this data". Are you really so naive as to believe this isn't being done by every damn company that can get the data? Saying the real issue is that "Google" got this data, is, IMHO, missing the boat. I don't want Facebook to have it eithre! So to me, like I said, i don't give a shit about that part. You are more than welcome to have a different opinion!
I also worked in DC long enough that a random PR release by an organization devoted to lobbying on certain issues just doesn't bug me or make me care. Quite literally. So I said that.
They are more than welcome to file whatever complaints they want, and i hope they get some sort of response.
While i tend to disagree strongly with his views, i'm much more in favor of folks like ocdtrekkie filing complaints with whatever specific feelings they have on an issue, because at least i don't believe that's being driven by PR
(I know it may be shocking to learn that,in attempts to get funding, etc, non-profits do large coordinated PR campaigns the same way politicians submit bills they know will never pass so they can go home and talk abut it at a stump speech. Much like everyone else, they must stay relevant to be useful.).