"I've been a Google fanboi for years and defended them in the public square when they've been accused of nefariousness. But these revelations of intentionally ignoring users' privacy settings have shaken me. Maybe it's time to put them into the Facebook category, where I removed my account years ago."
Okay, wait. There's multiple problems here.
The first one is this: that you are only now objecting, and not upset at all about Google handing over dissidents to the Chinese govt to torture and/or kill.
Human fucking life fucking has no fucking value to you? Priorities???
Secondly, they haven't been accussed of nefariousness, they have been caught red-handed, bald faced lied about it in public, only back-pedalled when presented with irrefutable evidence, and then convicted in court. Now, you can try to spin that as "accused", but you're going to need to set the spin cycle longer than normal, because that doesn't wash (sic) with the rest of the world.
Lastly, the problem with replacing Google is finding a good replacement. Bing is useless. The only thing close to gmail for free email (and it's barely in the same ballpark) is yahoo.
Please don't make assumptions about what I've said in the past. I've been very vocal about their involvement in China, including emailing them, blogging, and telling everyone I know about it. However, since they changed their handling of China, I thought it wasn't relevant to this particular discussion.
I agree with your intensity, though perhaps not its specific mode of expression.
The first one is this: that you are only now objecting, and not upset at all about Google handing over dissidents to the Chinese govt to torture and/or kill. Human fucking life fucking has no fucking value to you? Priorities???
How is that different from Google/ISPs handling over persons of interest to any other government, including yours? Or you think what is allowed in that case shouldn't be allowed for China's case? Are dissidents of China better than dissidents of any other country, to deserve special treatment?
Frankly I think that spending half the intro talking about how sexy they are and then essentially giving an update on what the person in question has been doing lately with their genitalia is just wrong.
Are they in the pr0n industry? No? Well then, sit down and shut the %%%% up.
I almost linked to that, but wanted to share the love with the other bro's sites out there too. That vid is in the top of the search results I linked, it's all good.
Technically it mioght not be theft, but Google certainly has a clear fiduciary repsonsibility in this case, and violating that is generally a lot more serious than mere theft.
You did read the bit about how Google was arbitrarily with-holding the advertising revenue his site had generated?
Sounds illegal to me.
If my bank decided they didn't want me as a customer anymore I'm pretty sure I'd want my deposits back (!!!). If I did some work for a customer and then they decided to keep the work, but not pay me, and wouldn't say why, I'm pretty sure they'd end up in court ASAP.
Okay, wait. There's multiple problems here.
The first one is this: that you are only now objecting, and not upset at all about Google handing over dissidents to the Chinese govt to torture and/or kill.
Human fucking life fucking has no fucking value to you? Priorities???
Secondly, they haven't been accussed of nefariousness, they have been caught red-handed, bald faced lied about it in public, only back-pedalled when presented with irrefutable evidence, and then convicted in court. Now, you can try to spin that as "accused", but you're going to need to set the spin cycle longer than normal, because that doesn't wash (sic) with the rest of the world.
Lastly, the problem with replacing Google is finding a good replacement. Bing is useless. The only thing close to gmail for free email (and it's barely in the same ballpark) is yahoo.