Linked by Kroc Camen on Sat 29th May 2010 20:41 UTC
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well because so far it has been...
So far it has fooled people into believing it has been. Google is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yes some of Apple's policies are draconian, and Jobs is a control freak, but when you use their stuff you know up front what you're getting. It's in their agreements, licences, etc, and those things are provided with every bit of hardware or software they sell and are presented to the user for every service they sell, yes even iTunes.
Google on the other hand use proprietary and very secret routines to collect significant quantities of your private information to use for their own financial gain without ever asking you if they can collect or use it. Captured searches, indexing personal web sites, tracking 'net usage through the safe harbour service that's now used as default by many ISP's - all without once asking if you're ok with them capturing your information.
If Google voluntarily purge all data captured to date from these services, make their indexing service only index sites that specifically allow it and presente data collection opt-in click through's for their search and DNS services, then I'd believe they're interested in being truly open.
Until then they are no different to any other corporation, they will do whatever they can get away with within the bounds of the law to make money and give themselves a competitive edge over their competition. No different to Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, HP, Ford, BP, McDonalds, %INSERT ANY COMMERCIAL CORPORATION HERE%...
Captured searches, indexing personal web sites,
When did indexing websites become bad? Personal websites are also websites and a web crrawler cannot distinguish between a personal and a commerical website. Heck. It shouldn't do. If you are so much tensed, why keep post your public data openly and cry that people are looking at it
If Google voluntarily purge all data captured to date from these services, make their indexing service only index sites that specifically allow it and presente data collection opt-in click through's for their search and DNS services, then I'd believe they're interested in being truly open.
No search engine does that. if you don't want your website to be craweled, robots.txt is there to your help.
OTOH when it comes to collecting Wifi hotspot data, when you broadcast SSID, it is PUBLIC! If you are so much scared of your wifi network getting recognized, switch off SSID broadcast. People put cup plated on the highway and complain that a car ran over it.




Member since:
2005-07-14
well because so far it has been... but you miss the point. For Google, which goal is to reach as many people as possible, and is paid by ads, development of application is not its business, nor does it threaten its revenues. That's why they came release some many free applications.
If one day, someone develop an app/website/device/whatever which remove the need to use a search engine, then it will be a problem for Google.. but we are not there.