That seems to be more or less the position of Google CEO Eric Schmidt when it comes to online privacy, and Schmidt’s comments to that effect have set off a firestorm of controversy over the web company’s commitment to its users’ privacy.
Read all about it here.
Google thinks that if you don't have any dire, black hearted secrets, why, you have nothing to worry about. You can display all your worts to the world and no harm no foul.
Yes, but what if you don't want to let on about your worts. what if you're paranoid (certainly no reason to be here.) The bottom line is this, Google nor anyone else for that matter has no business sticking their nose in my or your business.
Goody two shoes or not.
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Using Schmidt’s comments as the background to his announcement, an executive at Mozilla, the company that makes the Firefox browser, on Thursday suggested Firefox users to switch to Bing, Microsoft’s competing search engine, according to a report at ComputerWorld.
Citing a clip from a CNBC broadcast last Friday, during which Google chief executive Eric Schmidt discussed online privacy, Asa Dotzler, Mozilla’s director of community development, provided a link to the Firefox extension that adds Bing to Firefox’s search engine list. “Here’s how you can easily switch Firefox’s search from Google to Bing,” said Dotzler in an entry on his personal blog today. The link he included leads to the Bing search add-on.
“That was Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, telling you exactly what he thinks about your privacy,” said Dotzler on his blog. “There is no ambiguity, no ‘out of context’ here.” Dotzler added that he considers Bing’s privacy policy better than Google’s.
Mozilla’s move is all the more remarkable given the fact the company has a deal with Google to set Google’s search engine as the default in Firefox browsers.
Ryan Tate at Gawker called Schmidt out for hypocrisy, noting that Google was reported to have blacklisted tech news site CNET after it published some of Schmidt’s personal information online.
“The philosophy that secrets are useful mainly to indecent people is awfully convenient for Schmidt as the CEO of a company whose value proposition revolves around info-hoarding,” Tate wrote.
The following video was broadcast on CNBC, December 3, 2009, and uploaded to the Web by TheyToldYou.com.
Ultimately, Google is telling you that free; in fact, is not free.
