Faux pas extraordinaire from Google CEO Eric Schmidt:
If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.
Not that I’ve trusted Google and it’s supposed “Don’t Be Evil” policy (see my numerous previous blog entries), but this comment is really short-sighted. Unfortunately, most people are blissfully unaware that they are entrusting so much information and power to a single company.
This is awesome…and creepily somewhat true.
UPDATE: More fun parody and comedy at Google’s expense from Fake Steve Jobs, some not so fun poking at the frightening behemoth that Google has become and its invasive nature (which I’ve belabored before – see Buy a Good Tinfoil Hat, Tinfoil Redux and Dark Clouds), and some pissed off Linux people.
I’ve said it before (See Buy a Good Tinfoil Hat and Tinfoil Redux). Beware of cloud-based services, especially when owned by massive corporate behemoths devoid of any true liability. I’m sure I’ll say it many more times in the future…
I’ve posted about my distrust (“Buy a Good Tinfoil Hat” and “Tinfoil Redux”) for centralized (corporate-owned) services. Now the New York Times is actually getting in on the game. I think I covered my concerns pretty well in the earlier two articles, so I won’t rehash them again – but this problem is only going to get worse. We should enter shared computing and data storage of private data, particularly those owned by a corporate entity, with great trepidation.
I’ve never been terribly quiet about my distrust for the large corporation – especially those who wish to replace the services and data available on my computer with a server-side variant with both the application and data residing on said server.
Here is another example of why you don’t want to freely turn your data over to a “benevolent” corporation. In summary, Adobe offered this great new online variant of its Photoshop product, extensibly for “free”. The only problem was that it was fairly unclear whether by using this online application, any photos or work you modified or created with said application may now belong to Adobe (or at least certain rights of use). Wow. Evil.
They’ve fortunately thought better of it (after a huge public outcry) and modified their EULA/TOS. Intentional or not, this is cause for alarm. Honestly, crazy license agreements can and do exist for applications that you run on your own computer. Unfortunately, online applications and data storage just have a much easier and more likely opportunity to make off with your data and privacy.
In other words, you will have to pry my Personal Computer from my cold dead hands.
Following my trilogy on free software, it’s with a curious eye that I’ve been watching Newsgator’s move to offer all of their client software for free. This isn’t free in the open-source / libre sense but in the gratis – free as in beer sense. I was already a bit wary after Newsgator’s purchase of the NetNewsWwire product some time ago.
Let me just state uncategorically, NetNewsWire just rocks. This may be my most used software on my Mac. It’s well-designed and stable as a four-legged stool in a schoolhouse during summer vacation (?). The developer of the app is responsive to requests and seems like a great guy – and no one can blame someone for providing for themselves and their family. Newsgator’s purchase seemed to bring no immediate negatives – the same developer that was always working on this beautiful creation continued to do so. In addition, Newsgator syncing (which allows me to catch up on my RSS feeds from the iPhone) has been a real boon. My only concern rested in the fact that some indie developer with a close ear to the customers had been replaced by a corporation (even though a small one) that had many more interests and concerns than mine (a customer for a satellite product in its portfolio).
The announcement a couple weeks back that Newsgator was offering all its clients for free shocked me. It wasn’t that I was peeved that I paid for something that was now free. It was that I paid for a specific product and the expected value from said payment. Had the value been changed by it going free? Would the product continue to receive the attention from its customers if it no longer had paying customers? Also, as I’ve stated in other ways before – there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Newsgator is a corporation – and its motivations are certainly not to give away free software just to be nice. Where was the monetization of this gratis software?
Apparently, the motivation was two pronged. First, they apparently are seeking market share to drive sales of their enterprise solutions. This seems reasonable and doesn’t have serious negative impacts to the customer (although it does bely where their interests lie and for which customer they will be more reactive too). The second is a little more disconcerting. Newsgator will be using your reading and selection habits for their own purposes. The FAQ and queries to the execs never came clear on how possible it was to opt-out of this data collection – it appeared to be dependent on specific apps and could possibly involve deactivating your syncing.
I’m a bit peeved that I paid for a product that had been devalued – and now conceivably that product could be changed to pillage my privacy as part of the price of it being free (which I obviously didn’t agree to when forking over my money). Fortunately, it appears that NetNewswire is one of the apps that allows you to continue to sync while deactivating the personal information. But the whole thing almost feels like a bait and switch. In the end, the data is fairly anonymous and unlikely a serious risk to my privacy – but something about this whole experience has left a bad taste in my mouth. It feels “Microsoftish”.
As an aspiring independent Mac software developer, giving away the hard work of a developer does devalue all software. Rogue Amoeba discusses this as well. I also feel sorry for those trying to break into the RSS feed market. It’s hard to compete with free, but as I stated, NetNewsWire truly isn’t free. You pay a very small cost in privacy. If that cost becomes more onerous or more expensive with time, their might be another opening for a competitor some day. Until then, I’ll keep using NetNewsWire and welcome our new Newsgator overlords…
I’ve posted in the past my general dislike and paranoia of web-based applications and the access to our data that are therein provided to the corporate entities who own said apps. Generally, the perceivable danger to the less delusional than myself are corporate theft or misuse of data for marketing purposes. In my mind, the number of ways our personal data can be abused hasn’t even scratched the surface of the imagination. I won’t even mention the fact that I hate web applications which relinquish the user to the most horrid UI common denominator of that supported by a browser. I want my well integrated, highly functional, polished, and stylish thick-client application – but that’s a post for another day if I can help myself (actually, I’ve already spent too many days and posts on that already).
Google’s Reader, an RSS Feed aggregator, has been very popular, as have most of Google’s web applications – at least within the domain of web applications. Recent polls show that the uptake of web applications has been much lower than I think many anticipated. In a unique way, Google has exposed another facet of the danger of relegating control to data to an external company. When someone else manages your data or the way you access or use that data, that someone can change the rules on how that data is accessed or used.
In this case, Google has decided to unilaterally and without user opt-out ability to share information from these users use of Google Reader to other parties for which this information was not originally intended. Needless to say, outrage has ensued:
“I’ve been a Google booster for years, both in person and in my online columns. How can I trust you guys again? I shared confidential information with specific people, and now you tell me that *anyone in my contact list* can see what I’ve shared! This is an idea conceived by an idiot and approved by a fool. If I wanted to belong to a silly social networking outfit, I’d join MySpace.”
Honestly, I think Google was just trying to jump on the social Web 2.0 buzzword bandwagon and try to catch some of the MySpace / FaceBook love. No matter, the consequences are pretty severe and shaken the trust of its users, much like the privacy scandal which sullied Facebook’s image just a month or so ago.
WARNING: Philosophical diatribe ahead…
As I consider myself the antithesis of a luddite and a general lover of all things technology and gadgetry, it’s rare for me to feel so negative about an up-and-coming trend. Unfortunately, this trend to centralized applications and operating systems is not the natural progression of technological enlightenment. In actuality, this regression is little more than a return to the mainframe and terminal – although a somewhat prettier terminal.
Centralized systems are like communism, fascism and totalitarianism rolled into one – in the computer world that is – where the privileged few control everything. The PC was a revolution – a howitzer in the face of the autocratic glass encased IT handlers. It allowed the “common man” – or common office worker – to control his own technological destiny and innovate and build new methods of using said technology. Web applications are nothing more than the consumer-side implementation of the office mainframe environments of the 70′s and early 80′s. Web applications provide no intrinsic benefits to the consumer other than a standardized, dumbed-down interface and an easy (for IT personnel) method of application distribution. Doesn’t this sound familiar?
This is not to say that the “Internet” is bad. This is to say that our use of the Internet as an application platform via the Web is bad. I love the whole service-based trend of access to information via non-UI web services – but making a rather rudimentary mechanism for delivering a very thin multimedia experience as the platform for developing rich UI applications? Yuck!! It was O.K. when it was text and a few images and links to other pages of text and images. We’re past that now. We need the richness of modern application designs and UIs and platforms with the vast information provided by the Internet (through web services).
Unfortunately, as the old slightly modified cliché goes, “if your favorite tool is a hammer, all your problems will look like nails”. Right now, the favored tool of corporate America and many IT vendors is the web as seen through the browser. This will lead to my next rant about how the IBM’s of the world have brainwashed both the corporate world and the IT / development community into thinking the only way to build good apps is to use expensive tools, expensive application server software, expensive servers, and expensive contract services. I’ll save that for another day… But let’s just say, this is one of the reasons why I love becoming / being a Cocoa / Mac developer.
Listen, I think Steve Ballmer is lower than a tick on a bloated dead deer rump, but he poses an interesting point about Google and their privacy policy. Sure, he didn’t do it out of a humanitarian need to protect the consumer – he did it to shiv a competitor who’s taken Microsoft to the woodshed. Nor do I believe that Microsoft doesn’t have other policies that are much more devious and anti-consumer than Google’s privacy policy. None of this is what I want to talk about.
What I do want to talk about is who’s looking at your data. We are really careless when it comes to our data. We use email to communicate information that we never would want to be publicized – yet sending email is nothing more than sending a postcard written in big bold letters that is passed through the hands of a half-million people before arriving at its destination.
Corporations spend significant amount of time and effort to protect data from competitors. It’s mind-boggling how many people in the business-world use services such as the Google applications to store or share their company’s private information. Who knows what business Google will be in tomorrow.
Have you read all the terms of service and privacy policies for all the services handling your data? What methods do the services you use provide for encrypting your information (if any)? Have you considered encrypting your instant messaging and e-mail traffic?
Information is power. As we cede more of our personal information (or business knowledge) to the corporate powers of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others, be mindful – be paranoid – of where that data may end up and how it may be used…