Comment by tasty_freeze

13 days ago

It reminds me of when Eric Schmidt, then CEO of google, tried that argument about people's worry of google collecting so much personal data. Some media outlet then published a bunch of personal information about Schmidt they had gathered using only google searches, including where he lives, his salary, his political donations, and where his kids went to school. Schmidt was not amused.

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tasty_freeze

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neilv  13 days ago

That questionable-sounding stunt by the media outlet wasn't comparable: Google/Alphabet knows much more about individuals than addresses, salary, and political donations.

Google/Alphabet knows quite a lot about your sentiments, what information you've seen, your relationships, who can get to you, who you can get to, your hopes and fears, your economic situation, your health conditions, assorted kompromat, your movements, etc.

Schmidt is actually from OG Internet circles where many people were aware of privacy issues, and who were vigilant against incursions.

But perhaps he had a different philosophical position. Or perhaps it was his job to downplay the risks. Or perhaps he was going to have enough money and power that he wasn't personally threatened by private info that would threaten the less-wealthy.

We might learn this year, how well Google/Alphabet protects this treasure trove of surveillance state data, when that matters most.

  • hsuduebc2  12 days ago

    If it was his job to downplay the risk's then he absolutely deserved at least this.

    Google or any other US company will not be defending your's or anyone's else's data. It's not only that they doesn't want to(which they dont) but they simply can't.

    You must comply with the law and you do not want to currently piss off anyone's at the top.

  • jorts  13 days ago

    It was probably a decade ago and I recall using something within Google that would tell you about who they thought you were. It profiled me as a middle eastern middle aged man or something like that which was… way off.

    • sgc  13 days ago

      If I were extremely cynical, I would suspect they might have intentionally falsified that response to make it seem like they were more naive than they actually were.

      5 replies →

    • fn-mote  12 days ago

      The idea that Google’s lack of knowledge of you a decade ago is somehow related to what they know today is naive. Dangerously naive, I would say. Ad targeting technology (= knowledge about you) is shocking good now.

      3 replies →

  • mindslight  13 days ago

    > Schmidt is actually from OG Internet circles where many people were aware of privacy issues, and who were vigilant against incursions.

    > But perhaps he had a different philosophical position. Or perhaps it was his job to downplay the risks

    I feel that as the consumer surveillance industry took off, everyone from those OG Internet circles was presented with a choice - stick with the individualist hacker spirit, or turncoat and build systems of corporate control. The people who chose power ended up incredibly rich, while the people who chose freedom got to watch the world burn while saying I told you so.

    (There were also a lot of fence sitters in the middle who chose power but assuaged their own egos with slogans like "Don't be evil" and whatnot)

    • AndrewKemendo  13 days ago

      100% that is exactly what happened and in public

      Just invoking Richard Stallman will prove it because the smear campaign on him was so thorough.

      Linus seems to be the only one that made it out.

      8 replies →

    • neilv  13 days ago

      Yes, I remember that period of conscious choice, and the fence-sitting or rationalizing.

      The thing about "Don't Be Evil" at the time, is that (my impression was) everyone thought they knew what that meant, because it was a popular sentiment.

      The OG Internet people I'm talking about aren't only the Levy-style hackers, with strong individualist bents, but there was also a lot of collectivism.

      And the individualists and collectivists mostly cooperated, or at least coexisted.

      And all were pretty universally united in their skepticism of MBAs (halfwits who only care about near-term money and personal incentives), Wall Street bros (evil, coming off of '80s greed-is-good pillaging), and politicians (in the old "their lips are moving" way, not like the modern threats).

      Of course it wasn't just the OG people choosing. That period of choice coincided with an influx of people who previously would've gone to Wall Street, as well as a ton of non-ruthless people who would just adapt to what culture they were shown. The money then determined the culture.

      1 reply →

  • hluska  12 days ago

    It wasn’t a stunt and there was nothing questionable about it. I’m amazed by how easily people shit all over journalists - it really has to end because it is precisely how truth dies.

    Here’s a question - since you have such strong feelings did you write the editor of the piece for their explanation?

Sebguer  13 days ago

Back in the day, Google eng had pretty unguarded access to people's gmails, calendars, etc. Then there was a news story involving a Google SRE grooming children and stalking them through their google accounts...

KennyBlanken  13 days ago

Thiel lost his shit because Gawker mentioned he was gay in an article on their site. Something _everybody_ in Silicon Valley already knew. Then he goes and forms what essentially amounts to a private CIA.

How about Musk? He felt he had a right to hoover up data about people from every government agency, but throws a massive temper-tantrum when people publish where his private jet is flying using publicly available data.

How about Mark Zuckerberg? So private he buys up all the properties around him and has his private goon squad stopping people on public property who live in the neighborhood, haranguing them just for walking past or near the property.

These people are all supremely hypocritical when it comes to privacy.

  • red-iron-pine  12 days ago

    i hate defending thiel since hes literally destroying society, but he didn't get mad at gawker just for outing him

    he got mad at gawker for deliberately outing him right as he went to meet the saudis for negotiations. a country that literally executes gay people. at best it strained the negotiations and made things awkward, and at worst could have put him in peril.

    you dont just out people without their consent, and that goes for rich or poor.

    • blactuary  12 days ago

      So he was willing to make a business deal with the country that executes gay people, as long as HE wasn't in danger? Legitimizing their regime is perfectly OK if it doesn't affect him? The fact that he was negotiating with them makes that incident look even worse for him, not Gawker

    • Bluescreenbuddy  12 days ago

      "you dont just out people without their consent, and that goes for rich or poor."

      Nah fuck him. If you're closeted and funding anti-queer causes and politicians you deserve to be outed.

      1 reply →

    • FireBeyond  12 days ago

      Maybe his social media profiles at the time (public, because I'm not "friends" with him) shouldn't have included photos and posts about gay cruise ship vacations.

      Or perhaps don't do business with people who would happily execute you? All that says to me is Thiel values money over anything else.

      The insinuation that Gawker in any way shape or form "outed" him is just laughable.

      Gawker is absolutely trash media, to be quite clear.

      > and that goes for rich or poor

      I do agree about this, for certain things - but in others, no - and indeed, courts have ruled that billionaires are inherently "public figures"... "due to their outsized influence on public affairs and opinion".

      I also have significant issues with his bankrolling of Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker as an abomination of the legal system, including the right to face one's "accuser":

      - Hogan had already agreed in principle to a part ownership stake and profits of Gawker.

      - Lawyers paid for by Thiel pushed for him to drop that and push instead for bankrupting Gawker through damages (which were laughable, see below). (Hypothetical question, if you're an attorney, ostensibly representing Hogan, but you know the person paying your bills, Thiel, wants a different outcome for the case, when push comes to shove, whose interests are you going to represent? See the following point too).

      - When the case and awarded damages -did- actually threaten to bankrupt Gawker, Thiel/Hogan's lawyers did the most illogical thing possible, if they were looking to recoup any money for their ostensible client... they dropped the one claim against Gawker that would have allowed their liability insurance to at least partially pay out.

      (Re damages: The amount that Hogan had originally asked for seemed reasonable. Then after Thiel's lawyers got involved, the amount asked for was multiplied five thousand times.

      This included economic damages of fifty million dollars. For a man who had made something in the order of $10-15M his entire career? Who had a net worth at its peak of $30M, and at the time of the lawsuit of $8M? I highly doubt that TV stations pulling reruns of old WWF events, lost hair commercial and other endorsements was worth that. (They separately asked for emotional damages, too, to be clear. But there was near zero justification for this economic damages claim.)

      I wonder how much Thiel paid Hogan under the table for this proxy lawsuit?

webdoodle  12 days ago

And this is what every hacker on the planet should be doing: exposing all of the secrets of the rich parasites. Leave them no quarter, no place too hide.

Fnoord  13 days ago

Nowadays we got doxing laws in my country, but... the guy behind Palantir (look up where that name stems from, too) is called Peter Thiel.

wutwutwat  13 days ago

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

- Eric Schmidt

  • pardon_me  12 days ago

    Remember this when considering seeking medical help for an embarrassing symptom.

    • wutwutwat  5 days ago

      I wasn't sharing that because I think he's right. I was sharing it to show what kind of person we are talking about...