[aklug] Re: Google Evil? Was: Re: I'm an Android

On Thursday 22 July 2010 19:48:10 Christopher Kunzler wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 7:20 PM, Christopher Howard <choward@indicium.us>
wrote:
> > Somebody tell me if this is OT. But it seems very related to me:
> >
> > I don't understand the Google bashing. Google has probably done more for
> > open source than any company on the planet, depending on the measuring
> > stick you use, of course. Google has supported Google Summer of Code for
> > years. Google pays 85% of the expenses of the Mozilla foundation, and is
> > therefore pretty much responsible for giving us the only truly
> > marketable open-source browser (outside of Google Chrome). Google's
> > flagship mobile OS -- Android -- is released almost entirely under the
> > Apache license. Google gave us Google Apps which, outside of OpenOffice,
> > has been pretty much the only successful crack in the Microsoft Office
> > market.
> >
> > Outside of their search technology, virtually every software project
> > they've every championed (that I know of) has either been an open source
> > project or has advanced open standards in some way.
> >
> > I hear some people bash Google over privacy concerns. I'm not
> > unilaterally standing behind them, and maybe you can educate us better
> > on that. But there is no law saying that you have to send search queries
> > over an unencrypted connection to Google, in order to get a free
> > response back. And Gmail is a free e-mail service provided to almost 200
> > million people. Can we really expect Google to exhaust their company
> > savings defending client privacy when some agency comes along demanding
> > particular information?
> >
> > - --
> > Christopher Howard
> > frigidcode.com
> > theologia.indicium.us
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v2.0.15 (GNU/Linux)
> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
>
> I love Google--Google is one of the few big corporations I don't
> believe to be evil. However I can understand why some have concerns.
> Google has access to a crazy amount of information.

One other thought, not all of your Google data is on servers in the US. Google
claims to not have or will not have data centers is a few select 'axis of
evil' empires. The fact is you don't know where your data is

[tin foil hat[
There may be nothing stopping some other country from accessing data on
servers in their country. There is nothing stopping certain US agencies from
accessing you data in some other country.

-- 
Peace,
Greg
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