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0 pointsjbigelow7613y ago0 comments

And conversely so with Microsoft employees and similar criticisms. Nobody likes to the think they work for The Man or some kind of corporate tyrant, most truly believe they bringing value to the lives of their users as opposed to exploiting them (even incidentally).

Google is just as susceptible to trust issues as Microsoft or anyone else. Every time Google is caught violating privacy it's always an "accident", like with the wifi network data collection being done by their street view cars. If a company is constantly apologizing for "accidents" that align with their business interests I'd have a hard time trusting them, even if I continue to use them.

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throwawaay13y ago

I'm tired of people making insinuations about some sinister motive behind the WiFi logging without evidence. How did that debacle "align with Google's business interests"?

What use is there for fragments of WiFi payload data logged from a moving vehicle that also happens to be hopping WiFi frequencies? If there was any intent to exploit it, wouldn't you try to log more comprehensively? That is, by grabbing full HTTP transactions, or whatever.

Of course, this isn't meant to minimize the very clear fact that someone there fucked up. That case appears to be one where the accident label is justified.

jbigelow76OP13y ago

     How did that debacle "align with Google's business interests"?

Payload data can be used to inform their advertising efforts.

Two other points:

1. After an engineer alerted his supervisor of the "accident" it continued anyway so even if it was a sincere accident, nobody gave a enough of shit to rectify it.

2. Google still has the data two years after they were supposed to have deleted it, which they blame on communication issues as to how to delete it. Is Google saying the don't having the engineering know how to properly dispose of data if needed.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/Google-Failed-to-Delet...

huggyface13y ago

Payload data can be used to inform their advertising efforts.

The data collected while a streetview car drove by can inform their advertising efforts? You really have to bear a serious anti-Google grudge to entertain such a ridiculous, technologically laughable premise.

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