Google, one of the legends that came with your company was Don’t Be Evil, but this quote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt is atrocious,
If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.
From The Register – Google chief: Only miscreants worry about net privacy.
See the comments on the Slashdot story for a million and one reasons why this statement is ridiculously atrocious and why this sentiment should never gain any degree of acceptance in law enforcement, our judicial system, our government, our schools, our institutions of higher learning, and certainly not our businesses who are well known to sell out for the almighty dollar on a whim. Every search engine in existence censoring results just to get inside China, anyone?
Here’s a choice quote that I think sums up things pretty well,
Darn straight. You shouldn’t commit vile, illegal, immoral crimes, like Googling for Free Tibet from inside China, and then expect Google to give a damn about what happens to you. (Rogerborg)
I’m all worked up about this because I recently started using Google Public DNS. They now have the potential to know every single domain and IP address that I will ever lookup, intentionally or unintentionally.
It’s also widely believed that, contrary to public relations, the company has you uniquely identified by ip, cookie or browser / browsing signature, and never lets your information, your searches, your results and the web sites you visit, go.
I use gmail more and more and I have thousands of emails in there.
What I need is a company that I can trust. Google, you’re losing all that made you great.
Eric Schmidt, you will rue the day you made those comments and you will be made to eat your own words one fine day in the future. I imagine some hacker is, right now, working on exposing all of your personal details, Mr. Schmidt. You’ll have egg on your face then, won’t you?
Everybody needs an expected and adequate level of assumed privacy and innocence, even if it drives you mad that you don’t know what they’re up to.