Distortion. That's not Google spying on people. The guy use Orkut, a social network website, surely there's his account information there.
The personal data that is handed over is email address of the account. It's probably a privacy violation if it's really that hard to find out someone's email address once you know his social network account, but it's not spying on people.
They certainly did to me. They spammed my Gmail contacts with my RSS feed and Orkut profile picture without my consent; these are separate accounts and I intended to keep them separate. So Google forced my hand on that and I may forgive, but I certainly won't forget that. Similar stories abound. That some of that information is public does not mean I want Google to take advantage of my social network to broadcast it against my will; there's a clear difference here that Google does not want to recognize. This is all about dissemination control by the end user rather than Google.
Yes, but there are two problems with this particular company:
1. they have grown this mentality where they gather any data they can get their hands on - apologize only when/if caught red handed. (remember google street car password gathering?).
2. the more you use their services the more dependent you become. but google have shown zero care for individual consumers. (who do you call if gmail craps out on you?)
Google is a subcontractor. The owner of the website is using a service to track browser behaviour, and, perhaps erroneously, user identities. The service is famous, but not unique.
What the subcontractor does with the data is the responsibility of the website owner -- if they allow Google to abuse the data owner (that is, misuse the PII of people visiting the website), then the website owner should be held responsible.
Are you a lawyer? Their terms of service[0] and privacy policy[1] appear to give them pretty broad leeway:
"When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones."
I could easily argue that spying on your email in order to gain advantages in acquisitions or hiring could be justified for "improving [their] Services" or "to develop new ones".
Just based on the fact that Google's business model is inherently incompatible with privacy, I'd stay away.
It is in Google's best interest to sneakily track people despite claiming not doing so, and they can be very good at it and do in a way that's undetectable from the outside. In fact, I would be surprised if they're not doing this already.
Google is a large, generally reputable company which has very little to gain and everything to lose by sharing my personal information with others in violation of their own privacy policy.
In the absence of any evidence that they _are_ sharing my private information with others, I see no reason not to trust them in this regard.
" I don't recall asking Google to build a fleet of androids to drive around my neighborhood taking pictures of me and my neighbors' houses, but they did so anyway."
You have misread what google does. Legally, Google does not need your permission. Your implication that google collects personal data with streetview pictures would make sense if they take pictures of the _inside_ of your house.
Google and Facebook run businesses. They need to make money. The question is how they do it. And, on that question, I am on google's side because it is a better place for me and my data.
You set up strawmen ("Would you rather Facebook gave the information away to anybody who asked?") and it does not do much good to your argument.
That makes it even less sensible to call Google "spying" on people when one signup for Google's social network.
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