[mythtv-users] OT: Google - big brother? or I going mad?

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Tue Sep 14 13:17:30 UTC 2010


On Tuesday, September 14, 2010 05:30:06 am Damian wrote:
>   Hello all,
> 
> Excuse the off topic post, but this has long been one of the best most
> informed places to ask linux/open source type questions and I'd be
> interested to read your thoughts on this issue that really bothers me.
> 
> I'm really not comfortable with the 'big brother' presence of google. I
> think that they produce incredibly good products, but they are all
> designed to scrape every last piece of personal information out of the
> user. They are getting a bigger and bigger presence in the Linux/Open
> source world, and no one seems to mind which makes me question if I'm
> just being paranoid and everything is fine.
> 
> If you read a Linux magazine, it's often get many articles about privacy
> and security and keeping your system safe. Yet these same magazines
> discuss gmail, Android, google calendar and picassa without any mention
> of privacy and security. The files that are being put through googles
> servers and scanned for content to advertise back at us is the very
> content that we're trying to keep private on our machines.
> 
> Is it just me that finds this uncomfortable?
> 
> I'm not trying to be a smart arse. I'm genuinely wondering if it's all
> fine and I should just start using all of these google products. They
> certainly make life easier. They work so well that it's hard not to use
> them! Personally, I think they make their products the best of the best
> so that everyone willingly gives them all of the personal data that they
> want, but I've not heard many say similar. I have friends who are more
> geeky than me and discuss privacy and politics stronger than me, but
> they are all using their android phones and connecting it to their
> gmail, google calendar etc etc accounts and just can't see where I'm
> coming from.
> 
> Basically, I'm not trying to preach the google is bad. They just make me
> feel very uncomfortable but I'm doubting myself. What are your thoughts?

I recently looked into GoogleVoice.

It looks like they will give me a telephone number, for no cost at all.

It costs money to have and hold a phone number.

Why would they give it away? I don't understand the business model that would buy numbers and give them away for free.

I guess I'm just suspicious of things I don't understand. I know you can get numbers cheaply today, but not for free. What 
is going on?

Are they just trying to get people so dependent on Google's "free" services that they will eventually pay any price to 
keep them? Switching from a free model to a pay one is always very difficult (just ask the newspapers), though moving in the 
other direction is of course easy.

Or do they figure that enough documents, conversations etc. will pas through their servers that they can make money by 
mining it all for interesting tidbits?

But it makes me very uneasy to take advantage of all these "free" services, anything "free" usually turns out to be worth 
the cost, or to actually cost   much more in the end.

Likewise Gmail, and other Google services, it costs money to provide such a service, why would someone give it away?

It just doesn't pass the smell test.



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