Out of all the companies who use Google's business model, they do a good job of protecting their users. The fact they don't abuse their customers when they have so much opportunity to and a motivation to help their core business shows that they are ethical.
Wow, you're really on a roll. Since you seem to have just upped the alternate reality angle in your most recent post (I do like how you went and searched out the most inflammatory reporting of unsubstantiated charges in civil issues above and, for example, equated them with Google's established criminal behavior in the illegal drug sales scandal, funny stuff) I'll just refer you back to my previous post. Frankly, though, don't you think you're just a little too transparent?
Google's established criminal behavior in the illegal drug sales scandal
Illegality is determined by laws passed by people who are corruptible, can be unethical or just wrong. It was against the law in China to have uncensored search results and Google tried to get round it. They were breaking the law so can I assume you side with that kind of internet censorship? In the same way, drug companies in the US have managed to create a stranglehold on the prices of medicine blocking the sale of far cheaper Canadian drugs ( http://www.startribune.com/business/148983815.html ). Breaking the law doesn't make a company unethical if the people making the laws are unethical.
The government consistently fails to make reasonable and feasible laws concerning modern technology and communications. It's up to you to assess companies' behaviour against your own ethics and make your judgements about them. You've already made your judgement about Google and you find them to be untrustworthy and you're not alone:
I feel safer entrusting my data to companies who don't have a reason to abuse it but Google hasn't done anything that leads me to distrust them. They have been operating for 14 years and currently serve 100 billion results per month and yet no indvidual has experienced a privacy breach from their actions. There have been no major hacks or data breaches in all that time and with all that data.
We should all safeguard our personal information but it is our responsibility to do this. If you upload every picture you take to Facebook along with your opinions, your friends lists and someone socially engineers your password, your own lack of security played a major part in the breach. Similarly if you Google for how to build a chemical weapon and the authorities take an interest in it, you can't claim a breach of privacy when you volunteered the data. If you need a secure channel on which to upload data then you create one by proxy/encryption.
Let's assume the scenario that Google or Apple are the ones taking these steps. Every connection you make to Google or Siri is anonymous, every request is deleted after it is made. They don't know where you are or what you like. If you ask "where can I get a twinkie?" how does it know what you are talking about? The accuracy depends on context, which requires profiling of some kind. If you assume profiling is required then the concern is over the safety of the data and potential misuse. Show me where Google has misused data and I will distrust them.
The use of search engine will be very different in the coming years and Google is making a new wave in the voice search field with the introduction of changing its introduction.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
I haven't written anything unbelievable. On the other hand, you wrote the following, which I think qualifies:
"as a society, we have to decide whether we value freedom, or targeted ads"
Explain the process it uses to do that. Here's a link that might help:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/ibm-bans-siri-privacy-risk-or-corporate-paranoia-at-its-best/77843
So why do you, instead of showing evidence of the evil and the harm caused by it?
Apple has had some run ins with the law and they are minor just like Google's:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/199335/20110817/apple-sued-over-clearly-illegal-locationtracking.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/13/apple-ebook-price-fixing-terrifying
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/Apple_Stock_Backdating_May_Include_Fake_Documents/
Out of all the companies who use Google's business model, they do a good job of protecting their users. The fact they don't abuse their customers when they have so much opportunity to and a motivation to help their core business shows that they are ethical.
Wow, you're really on a roll. Since you seem to have just upped the alternate reality angle in your most recent post (I do like how you went and searched out the most inflammatory reporting of unsubstantiated charges in civil issues above and, for example, equated them with Google's established criminal behavior in the illegal drug sales scandal, funny stuff) I'll just refer you back to my previous post. Frankly, though, don't you think you're just a little too transparent?
Illegality is determined by laws passed by people who are corruptible, can be unethical or just wrong. It was against the law in China to have uncensored search results and Google tried to get round it. They were breaking the law so can I assume you side with that kind of internet censorship? In the same way, drug companies in the US have managed to create a stranglehold on the prices of medicine blocking the sale of far cheaper Canadian drugs ( http://www.startribune.com/business/148983815.html ). Breaking the law doesn't make a company unethical if the people making the laws are unethical.
The government consistently fails to make reasonable and feasible laws concerning modern technology and communications. It's up to you to assess companies' behaviour against your own ethics and make your judgements about them. You've already made your judgement about Google and you find them to be untrustworthy and you're not alone:
https://www.privacyinternational.org/reports/a-race-to-the-bottom-privacy-ranking-of-internet-service-companies/why-google
I feel safer entrusting my data to companies who don't have a reason to abuse it but Google hasn't done anything that leads me to distrust them. They have been operating for 14 years and currently serve 100 billion results per month and yet no indvidual has experienced a privacy breach from their actions. There have been no major hacks or data breaches in all that time and with all that data.
We should all safeguard our personal information but it is our responsibility to do this. If you upload every picture you take to Facebook along with your opinions, your friends lists and someone socially engineers your password, your own lack of security played a major part in the breach. Similarly if you Google for how to build a chemical weapon and the authorities take an interest in it, you can't claim a breach of privacy when you volunteered the data. If you need a secure channel on which to upload data then you create one by proxy/encryption.
Let's assume the scenario that Google or Apple are the ones taking these steps. Every connection you make to Google or Siri is anonymous, every request is deleted after it is made. They don't know where you are or what you like. If you ask "where can I get a twinkie?" how does it know what you are talking about? The accuracy depends on context, which requires profiling of some kind. If you assume profiling is required then the concern is over the safety of the data and potential misuse. Show me where Google has misused data and I will distrust them.
The use of search engine will be very different in the coming years and Google is making a new wave in the voice search field with the introduction of changing its introduction.