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A comment on Yahoo Files Suit Demanding Greater Accountability from the U.S. Government.

Re:Yahoo Files Suit Demanding Greater Accountability from th... by natch on Monday September 09, 2013 @12:14PM (#6354321)
So, the government is burning your house down, and rather than fight the fire directly, you sue them to allow you to reveal the exact amount of gasoline being used?

Why? Because it's an easier PR ploy. What these companies really should fight is the government's so far successful attempts to compel them to violate users' privacy.

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Re:Yahoo Files Suit Demanding Greater Accountability from th... by freehunter on Monday September 09, 2013 @12:27PM (#6354392)
Why not assess just how big the fire is? That determines if you need a fire extinguisher, a fire truck, or a new house altogether.
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Re:Yahoo Files Suit Demanding Greater Accountability from th... by natch on Monday September 09, 2013 @12:48PM (#6354518)
They already know the numbers.
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Re:Yahoo Files Suit Demanding Greater Accountability from th... by freehunter on Monday September 09, 2013 @01:00PM (#6354595)
1) They know their numbers. Not the numbers for other companies.

2) We don't know any of the numbers.

If my apartment was on fire, I'd like to know how many other apartments were burning, and so would my landlord. Yahoo is one apartment on the web, and we are the landlords of our government. Yahoo knows how much of their apartment is on fire, but they know nothing about Google across the hall from them.

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Re:Yahoo Files Suit Demanding Greater Accountability from th... by natch on Monday September 09, 2013 @10:08PM (#6357647)
1) Wrong. They do know the numbers for other companies, as ranges, which are plenty sufficient for comparison: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/US...

2) Wrong again. We know ranges (see link above) and we don't need to know the exact numbers. All we need to know is that the house is on fire, and we already know that.

> they know nothing about Google

Sigh. See above.

The exact number issue is a red herring. Again, this is simply a PR ploy.

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