Why no one cares about privacy anymore
Summary
Google co-founder Sergey Brin adores the company's social network called Google Buzz. We know this because an engineer working five feet from Brin used Google Buzz to say so.
Topics
Google co-founder Sergey Brin adores the company's social network called Google Buzz. We know this because an engineer working five feet from Brin used Google Buzz to say so.
"I just finished eating dinner with Sergey and four other Buzz engineers in one of Google's cafes," engineer John Costigan wrote a day after the Twitter-and-Facebook-esque service was announced. "He was particularly impressed with the smooth launch and the great media response it generated."
You might call Brin's enthusiasm premature, especially since privacy criticisms prompted Google to make a series of quick changes a few days later. Activists have asked the Federal Trade Commission to "compel" Google to reprogram Buzz a third time to adhere to the no doubt well-informed specifications of Beltway lawyers. A class action lawsuit filed on behalf of an aggrieved second-year law student is underway.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the courthouse: relatively few Google Buzz users seem to mind. Within four days of its launch, millions of people proved Brin right by using the messaging service to publish 9 million posts. A backlash to the backlash developed, with more thoughtful commentators pointing out that Google Buzz disclosed your "followers" and who you were "following" only if you had elected to publish that information publicly on your Google profile in the first place.
For more on this story, read Why no one cares about privacy anymore on CNET News.
Talkback Most Recent of 14 Talkback(s)
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RE: Why no one cares about privacy anymore
My oh my ! Privacy is very important to me. I know some people do not care at all about their privacy and that most care to some degree that their privacy should be "kept" private. Google has a following that will do whatever they say, and if thats giving up their privacy, so be it. I don't see it that way and i'm sure there are others that feel the same way. I know that there are some things that you can not keep private no matter how much you try. But not to care, I think not.
wayne2934@...03/12/2010 08:21 AM -
This statement is totally wrong
Obviously, the title really doesnt reflect the content of the discussion. Posting private matters on a public access area is purely the fault of the user. Privacy is important otherwise you give up the right to individualism. I will not BE-LIKE-MIKE and give in to urges of sharing my private life to the world.
All users should realize that the internet is a PUBLIC arena and ANYTHING you put on a site is subject to be disclosed to the world.
dtroyerSMU03/12/2010 08:36 AM -
correction
I forgot that this site recognizes html tags. It should read, "... themselves (fill in the blank) on..."
FichenDich03/12/2010 09:07 AM -
Rationalization and justification, that's all it is...
The article above talks about how Google and others view privacy. It is to their benefit to have everybody forget about privacy and to just let loose and share their lives online.
The article does a very tortured attempt to demonstrate how people have come to accept that their privacy is of no concern and it's okay to share even their most intimate secrets with the online world. Just because 1% bothered themselves to register their concerns about the invasion of privacy being undertaken by including their friends list in Buzz, the writers conclude that it means that the other 99% either accepted the invasion of privacy or didn't care. But, did they bother to actually question the 99% directly? I'll bet that there would be a lot more who would register their concerns than the 1% that the article mentions. Just because people don't actively express their concerns is no reason to conclude that they don't care or approve.
The article is no more than an attempt to justify and rationalize the invasion of privacy being undertaken by the likes of Google and Facebook and many other companies online. If anybody ever thought that Google would "do no evil", then they should look at the above article again and examine how Google is rationalizing and justifying their intents to invade all aspects of your life.
adornoe@...03/12/2010 09:45 AM -
Need for greater privacy education
One might also argue that it just means there's a 99% of people who need more education in the importance of privacy. It's one thing if they've thought about privacy and the implications of giving it up in favour of 'attention whorish' behaviour (there's really no tactful way of saying that, is there?), but I suspect most of the people who haven't taken greater steps to ensure the security of their privacy, simply don't fully understand the ramifications well enough to make an informed decision one way or another.
And unfortunately, a lot of those people happen to be kids, who consider themselves more tech-savvy than their parents, yet naively broadcast their entire day's itinerary for any and all to see. Perhaps it has something to do with their parents not being fully cognizant of how lacking in security of privacy their children are, or not knowing how to rectify that problem.
Krantzstone03/18/2010 03:17 PM -
RE: Why no one cares about privacy anymore
Only the fools who throw their privacy away don't care
about privacy. The rest of us care a great deal about
privacy and aren't foolish enough to post private data.
Apparently we are in the minority.
shanedr03/12/2010 11:05 AM -
RE: Why no one cares about privacy anymore
I care. And with this and other statement I have moved away from all things google.
dpike.northpole@...03/12/2010 05:11 PM -
This sort of thing makes me laugh.
If the US Government had done this sort of stuff, people would be rioting in the streets.
If some private corporation does it, it is a triumph of "Free Market Capitalism".
lehnerus2000
lehnerus200003/12/2010 08:47 PM -
It is wrong when anybody does it...
Invasion of privacy, or use of your identity or personal information, is wrong, no matter whether the government does it or private enterprise does it.
Permission to use your personal information should be sought on a person by person basis and nobody should assume that because a person hasn't protested that they don't mind having their information used.adornoe@...03/13/2010 07:15 AM -
Agreed 100% (nt)
lehnerus2000lehnerus200003/13/2010 08:58 PM -
RE: Why no one cares about privacy anymore
Many of us do care intensely about our privacy. We limit social media information, or eschew it altogether. I suspect that the popularity of social media exhibitionism is partially or completely due to the media salesjob that we are all "stars", an obvious attempt by corporate interests to sell the public on the idea that privacy is unnecessary or obsolete. This cultural attitude would enable corpoRATs and big government to compile their databases and eliminate our liberties without interference, until freedom is as unrecoverable as privacy.
littlepitcher03/14/2010 11:51 AM -
RE: Why no one cares about privacy anymore
I think the reason that most younger users of the Internet do not care so much about their privacy is because they have not yet been violated. As they age, they will learn how allowing too much personal information out into the public arena can, and will, be used against them by what they had previously thought were benign organisations.
OldWiseGuy(Edited: 03/14/2010 05:40 PM) -
adornoe@...03/16/2010 01:23 PM
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Ass covering mode in action
If Buzz was so cool, then they would not have had to opt people in by default? I turned it off as soon as it was enabled on my account, and on my private email, that has now been moved off Gmail.
As for 9 million posts, they turned it on for *everyone*. There are several hundred million Gmail users, so a tiny tiny fraction of those that were opted in, tried it once only.
So this sounds like someone in gmail trying to cover their ass in a pending lawsuit, rather than the world suddenly changing and privacy no longer mattering.
Is Sergey's house on Streetview BTW? What about Eric Schmidt, or does he still go beserk when you try to locate his house?
http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2005/081505buzz.html
So they should apologise and backtrack rather than try to pretend black is white and white is black.
guihombre03/18/2010 02:06 PM
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