Is Google Evil?

Discussion in 'privacy general' started by Brandonn2010, Feb 22, 2013.

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  1. I was wrong on that, they don't require a warrant. Pretty sad :thumbd:
     
  2. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    There's nothing special or interesting about Google information management.
    Mrk
     
  3. hidden

    hidden Registered Member

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    I block Gmail. It's not enough to just not use it.

    If people ask why, I ask, "Do you really want to know what Google does with it?"

    Always ................ the 'Frightened Sheep Look' and "No, that stuff scares me. I don't like to think about it!"

    Same as, "But I NEED Facebook."


    Baaaaaaaa..............................
     
  4. Noob

    Noob Registered Member

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  5. siljaline

    siljaline Registered Member

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  6. Brandonn2010

    Brandonn2010 Registered Member

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    I guess I should have asked if Google is more evil than any other service that collects digital information, such as Facebook, Bing, Yahoo, etc. Are they really worse than any of those others?
     
  7. DynoTAP

    DynoTAP Registered Member

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    Yikes! Scary stuff. I've known very little about this for quite some time now, but haven't really looked into it much until now.

    P.S.
    I'm using Google Chrome right now. Would Chromium be a better solution?
     
  8. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    I don't think that they're more "evil". Maybe they're even less "evil", in that they're more idealistic about freedom and human potential. But they are better at collecting and mining data than the others, I think.

    ~Comment removed. Leave politics for another forum.~
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 3, 2013
  9. Techwiz

    Techwiz Registered Member

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    I don't have an issues using g-mail for some things, but I wouldn't use it for everyday use. It's faster to upload large compressed files, which I need to do for school. Yahoo is just way to slow. But that doesn't mean you should use it for everything. I'm just as cautious on my desktop when I sign-in to Google. I don't do any other surfing to mitigate unwarranted data mining. It really comes down to how you go about using it.
     
  10. TheWindBringeth

    TheWindBringeth Registered Member

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    Be careful about what you are doing here. Things should be assessed in an individual fashion, relative to an ideal and potentially imaginary solution that would meet all of your requirements and desires. Which is another way of saying that a requirements list always comes first. One mistake we consumers frequently make is neglecting that step. A second mistake would be pre-pruning the list of possible solutions. Usually to large, mainstream, therefore assumed to be (more) reputable companies/offerings. Popularity is a highly unreliable indicator of quality and it tells you nothing about suitability to your application.

    IOW, fight the urge to fall back to a "this is no worse than other popular companies/offerings" mentality.
     
  11. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    I apologize for getting into politics in my previous post. I thought that I was joking, but it was clearly a bad joke :(

    My point is that it's not useful to talk about Google etc as "good" or "evil". Even if those simple characterizations are useful for people, which is debatable, they're not at all useful for corporations. Corporate behaviour is far too complex for that.
     
  12. er34

    er34 Guest

    The answer is probably YES. Google wants too much personal information, they survive thanks to the information, they collect too much personal and non-personal information. They collect a lot more than others. And while some other collect some info, Google not just collects it - Google uses it to make money. Everybody can easily be tracked by using Google products and it is not very difficult - the users do it on their own.

    I have a favourite anti-Google site (not my own site, though):
    http://www.leavegooglebehind.com/

    So, people better stop using Gmail or any Google account, then stop using Google devices such as Android based phones/tablets, and block Google ad services into their browser (Google ad services are almost everywhere on many many sites - thus tracking)
     
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