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Comment by tasty_freeze

9 hours 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  8 hours 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.

  • jorts  5 hours 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  5 hours 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.

      3 replies →

  • mindslight  7 hours 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)

    • neilv  6 hours 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.

    • AndrewKemendo  4 hours 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.

      5 replies →

Fnoord  4 hours 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.

Sebguer  9 hours 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...

wutwutwat  1 hour 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

KennyBlanken  3 hours 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.