Is Google going too far?

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  1. #1

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    Is Google going too far?

    Not only it is recording and tracking everything we do, allows you to submit your data on you drives to their Gdrive and also let them track everywhere you go.

    Their Measurement Labs (M-Lab), appears to report on how your ISP maybe rate-limiting your bandwidth, when in reality what it is pushing for is ensuring that that ISPs keeping giving them free bandwidth and let you know if Google has been put on the slow lane. Or are you guys in favour of this?

    Not it is getting very heavy handed with taking control of your PC like Microsoft use to in the past.
    http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?.../02/06/1510228

    What will it take for people to realize what Google is not really a nice company?

    Last edited by hk.com; 07-02-2009 at 01:42 AM.

  2. #2

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    Yawn.

    They've paid for their bandwidth, you don't have to use their services, their services are paid by advertising which requires accurate tracking to be worthwhile and to target specific demographics. No one but the tin-foil hat brigade really gives a shit. Have you never been to Facebook or Myspace?

    edit: The tiered Internet or net-neutrality is a different debate, corporations will always try to drag extra money out of things. Free peering starts to fail and bigger problems arise if a precedent is set.

    Last edited by MrMoo; 07-02-2009 at 08:17 AM.

  3. #3

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    That's a great answer.


  4. #4

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    Moo,
    I understand that you don't want people to discuss your beloved Google in such a light and may not make you feel happy as a Google paying customer.

    You attempt at branding us non google fans as a the Tin foil brigade does not really add anything. This is not old hat, these are things that google has done over the past few weeks. Maybe you want to argue rather than name calling.

    Last edited by hk.com; 07-02-2009 at 11:35 AM.

  5. #5

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    Yep, I'll further add, that Mr Moo posted an excellent answer, and rated it as such...

    Last edited by Skyhook; 07-02-2009 at 11:43 AM.

  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by hk.com:
    Maybe you want to argue rather than name calling.
    Not to be an ass but where is your argument?

    If Google charged for their services we wouldn't be paying. If Google was just another copy of Hotmail with shitty service, oodles of in your face adverts it wouldn't be as popular. Neither Yahoo!, MSN, Microsoft, or hk.com have provided users with suitably advanced alternatives.

    Now if you were talking about Google Sites being a shit replacement for Google Pages, or Google Latitude being ripe for abusive Big Brother monitoring that would be fair game. Still waiting for Google Labs in Traditional Chinese too.

  7. #7

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    Thanks for the answer. I struggle to understand how your reply related to my post about peoples privacy.

    To answer your question I was not starting an arguement. I wondered if the latest events made had made people change their peoples mind on Google being a big happy loveable company. I was just posing the same questioin that had been posed on Slashdot.

    I know where you stand on Google.

    Quote Originally Posted by MrMoo:
    Not to be an ass but where is your argument?

    If Google charged for their services we wouldn't be paying. If Google was just another copy of Hotmail with shitty service, oodles of in your face adverts it wouldn't be as popular. Neither Yahoo!, MSN, Microsoft, or hk.com have provided users with suitably advanced alternatives.

    Now if you were talking about Google Sites being a shit replacement for Google Pages, or Google Latitude being ripe for abusive Big Brother monitoring that would be fair game. Still waiting for Google Labs in Traditional Chinese too.
    Regarding other companies providing shit technology do you mean no one else can match google? Do you mean that you are willing to trade your privacy for using a product that you perceive is better?

    BTW I doubt you know what we actually do?

  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by hk.com:
    Regarding other companies providing shit technology do you mean no one else can match google? Do you mean that you are willing to trade your privacy for using a product that you perceive is better?
    Judging by MSN, Yahoo!, and even Apple it would appear no one else can match Google. Email privacy? My email is dull as lard, bug reports about software, adverts from Pokka Cafe, and boring mailing lists. If I'm going to talk about something so important it's not going to be via email anyway.

  9. #9

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    Their services are free, which means you the user make a conscientious choice to use them. If you do not agree with their privacy policies or data gathering, don't use their services. That being said, a large reason their services are so well done is that they use their data gathering for that explicit purpose (Google Suggest is a good example).

    Each time they roll out a new service which treads on the line of invasion of privacy, some one raises the issue. Each time Google comes back with a classy response. The recent stir over Latitude...Google assured the public that no prior user location information is stored and only the person's last position is ever stored on their servers. If that's not enough of a compromise, I don't know what is.

    Storing all your email is the consequence of giving us free unlimited storage space.

    Storing your data on GDrive allows you access to it anywhere in the world essentially.

    There are benefits to all their services and obviously there will always be concerns. It's a decision you the end-user must make as with every choice we make in life, there are consequences.


  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by hk.com:
    What will it take for people to realize what Google is not really a nice company?
    Are there any 'nice' companies out there?
    What do you define as being nice anyway?

    I use google services because they're available, easy to use, suit my requirements and are free.
    As for security? Well you abandon that the moment you connect your computer to the network... sure google can read all my gmail, but so can every other smtp srever that the mail is routed through, or on the IMAP server I have from another provider.

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