Re:With Google, There Will Be Bad Blood
by iamelgringo on Tuesday August 09, 2011 @12:48AM
(#2862949)
because its illegal
Not trying to be difficult, or troll.
What laws would this be breaking? The data they are gathering is proprietary and people have opted in to that data by using their services. Why shouldn't they use it to their financial benefit?
There's all sorts of legal issues. It's a minefield.
And in any case, there's huge PR exposure. And Google is ridiculously sensitive to bad PR.
I often get the sense the lawyers are running things, considering how often I've given up personally on ideas that involve data mining.
Maybe they don't do some of the things you're saying because its illegal and in 13 years of business where their business relies on a public reputation.. it would do more damage to their business then the minor wins of spying on some startup that they can probably out compete anyways.