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Compare And Contrast Google To Microsoft On The Privacy vs. Ads Question
from the which-one-is-more-trustworthy? dept
Last week, we wrote about a WSJ article that discussed some of the tensions inside Microsoft over whether to side with advertisers or consumers when it came to privacy features in Internet Explorer. This week, the WSJ appears to have a similar article, about a similar debate within Google. I actually expected the story to be quite similar to the Microsoft story, but, honestly, I was pretty surprised at the lack of any "there" there in this latest article. It appears to take a single document by a mid-level staffer, who tossed out a bunch of random ideas for brainstorming purposes -- many of which, it appears, everyone at the company knew were non-starters -- to suggest that the company was "agonizing" over competing privacy and advertiser interests. These sorts of documents get created all the time, and don't mean anything really.
There are some interesting nuggets in the piece, which suggest that the real struggle over privacy issues and Google will come down the road after Sergey and Larry leave the company. As it stands, those two still appear to have pretty strong views on protecting users' privacy, correctly realizing that not doing so will actually do more long term harm to both consumers and Google itself. But, not everyone is good at recognizing the long term impact of profitable, but short-sighted, short term decisions.
If anything, the article does serve as a reasonable reminder that for most of us, Google really does have access to a tremendous amount of potentially sensitive material, and basically everyone has put their trust in the fact that the company won't abuse this access to data. To date, the company has actually been quite good about all of this, but there's certainly no guarantee that will always be the case. If anything, the increased scrutiny on Google should have the company looking to put in place a framework now to "forward protect" people's data, in case future Google execs change tactics. I think that could go a long way towards retaining people's trust.
There are some interesting nuggets in the piece, which suggest that the real struggle over privacy issues and Google will come down the road after Sergey and Larry leave the company. As it stands, those two still appear to have pretty strong views on protecting users' privacy, correctly realizing that not doing so will actually do more long term harm to both consumers and Google itself. But, not everyone is good at recognizing the long term impact of profitable, but short-sighted, short term decisions.
If anything, the article does serve as a reasonable reminder that for most of us, Google really does have access to a tremendous amount of potentially sensitive material, and basically everyone has put their trust in the fact that the company won't abuse this access to data. To date, the company has actually been quite good about all of this, but there's certainly no guarantee that will always be the case. If anything, the increased scrutiny on Google should have the company looking to put in place a framework now to "forward protect" people's data, in case future Google execs change tactics. I think that could go a long way towards retaining people's trust.
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Long term impact of short term decisions
I'm not sure that's as true as we tend to think. Of late I've come to believe that most execs DO understand the long term impact, they just don't care - they want the short-term benefit and they figure they'll work around the long term problems later. Or they figure they will be long gone before the long term shows up.
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Unsure
Source
As it stands, we're seeing Google morph into an entirely different entity. What will be their final formation is anyone's guess.
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The Problem
When I signed on to use gmail all these... wow, must be 10 years ago now, I didn't use my actual name or anything. I use a pseudonym. Anything else that requires my actual information is sent via a pop server that I control. See, when I see a company motto that reads "Do no evil" I always make sure I'm insured when I use that company's services.
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Marketing Trumps All Rights
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Re: Unsure
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IF'
1. They charged you for commercial purposes. You paid for windows not the adverts.
2. They opened your system for any person to maliciously have any access to your system without your knowledge.
3. your browser is supposed to protect you and MS sells a program ($99 per year) to access your computer. That remote access has given them the ability to Infect and destroy your data.
4. they purposefully redesigned JAVA and other internet languages to GIVE access to those with VALID INTERNET certificates and you have/had no Viable way to TURN IT OFF.
Sounds like a very good lawsuit to me.
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English
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