Poll: How much do you trust Google?

Re:Poll: How much do you trust Google? by ntakasaki on Sunday May 04, 2014 @02:20PM (#7695182)

I posted recently about how they lost my trust after snaring schools with offers of free email and Chromebooks, used that captive audience of kids to secretively build profiles to show ads, denied it when caught, but chickened out about lying in federal court and now they declare they've stopped doing it. Add to that statements that it couldn't be turned off and silently switching language about tracking on their web pages. If this isn't evil then I don't know what is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7690503

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poll: How much do you trust Google? by jacktt on Sunday May 04, 2014 @03:27PM (#7695424)

I guess that would be your version of events if you only got your news from Microsoft PR.

GApps for education had an option in its admin console to enable ad targeting, it was off by default, the main reason it was there is that it and gmail shared much of the same infrastructure.

As for the lawsuit which despite your claims and those of your linked source (which is parroting the PR folks at safegov in their interpretation) didn't uncover anything other that what Google already stated, but sadly the efforts of these vested interests to confuse you and other uninformed persons by misusing the word "scanning" bared some fruit.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poll: How much do you trust Google? by DanBC on Sunday May 04, 2014 @02:52PM (#7695296)

Evil is kidnapping a school because you feel that western education is against the rules of your religion.

Boko Haram kidnapped over 230 schoolgirls in Nigeria. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/30/hundreds-march-...

But even if we avoid extremists, it's easier to call people evil when they spy on their pupils using the webcams on the school provided laptops. And then, after people have complained, they do it again. http://www.wired.com/2011/06/webcam-scandal-resurfaces/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poll: How much do you trust Google? by wellboy on Sunday May 04, 2014 @03:17PM (#7695381)

Ok then the "evilness" per pupil is higher, however what's more evil?

Kidnapping 230 puplis or spying on 23,000 pupils, or 230,000 or 23M?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poll: How much do you trust Google? by Navarr on Sunday May 04, 2014 @03:26PM (#7695421)

Is it spying when you're just not turning off automated systems that nobody looks at the data for?

It's literally no different than what Google does for anyone else, yet it's spying for schools because... why?

Were the children using the services under 13? I've never understood why this was potentially illegal, and never seen anything address that.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poll: How much do you trust Google? by hadoukenio on Sunday May 04, 2014 @04:01PM (#7695551)

> Is it spying when you're just not turning off automated systems that nobody looks at the data for?

James Clapper, is that you?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poll: How much do you trust Google? by hagope on Sunday May 04, 2014 @02:42PM (#7695262)

This is perhaps a bit greedy but not evil...evil is bombing an elementary school: http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/30/world/meast/syria-civil-war/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poll: How much do you trust Google? by wetafur on Sunday May 04, 2014 @02:52PM (#7695300)

So when Google said their policy was 'Dont be evil.', they meant they would do their utmost to refrain from blowing up elementary schools?

According to Brin and Page: "Don't be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served-as shareholders and in all other ways-by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company."

[ Parent | on HN ]