Is Google turning into big brother?

[Ecolitan]

I never got the impression you had replied to Alex. 

So, if you don't give a shit. Why say it?  What's the purpose of coming in this thread where this guy is all excited to talk about something he loves to talk about and tell him how little you care, see how he might think that's odd and even blatantly unfriendly behavior?

[Bill Brasky]

I never got the impression you had replied to Alex. 

So, if you don't give a shit. Why say it?  What's the purpose of coming in this thread where this guy is all excited to talk about something he loves to talk about and tell him how little you care, see how he might think that's odd and even blatantly unfriendly behavior?

Fail.

[freeAgent]

I do think it's pretty hilarious that people are now trying to advocate "search engine neutrality".  Karma's a bitch.

Yeah, but two wrongs don't make a right, especially since Google's loss is government's gain, which in turn is a loss for our liberty.  This is how they're going to bring down free Internet - under the banner of "freedom", that is the communist hijacking of the concept to mean "unreliable promises of free beer through limitless government power".  First it's "net neutrality", then "search neutrality", then "social networking neutrality", then "software neutrality" (i.e. GPL), then blogger licensing, etc, etc, etc - all the way to Big Brother and Pravda.

I'm totally with you, and I don't want them to be successful.  I also don't want Google, etc. to be successful with their "Net Neutrality" campaign.  It's obviously not only anti-freedom, but anti-Good.  There are a multitude of ways I can see "Net Neutrality" fucking up my internet experience, and I don't want it.  Competition takes care of the consumer, not mandates.

[Alex Libman]

From Commiedot -- Google CEO Schmidt Predicts End of Online Anonymity --

A tweet from the EFF pointed me to a short article detailing part of Eric Schmidt's speech to the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe on August 4.  According to Schmidt, true transparency and anonymity on the Internet will become a thing of the past because of the need to combat criminal and "anti-social" behavior.

"Governments will demand it", he says, referring to full accountability and a "name service for people", possibly hinting towards mandatory Internet passports.  The CEO of Google also made a couple of somewhat creepy references to the availability of information:  "If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use artificial intelligence, we can predict where you are going to go ... show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are.  You think you don't have 14 photos of yourself on the internet?  You've got Facebook photos!"

[Cognitive Dissident]

Alan Kay, of Palo Alto Reserch Center, and Apple Computer, once did a lecture on "Predicting the Future, by Inventing it."  In it, he pointed out that no one had any use for the photocopier until it was invented.  The typical response was that "nobody would want it--we're on our way to the paperless office." (Signed, Xerox--really!)  Yet, once it proliferated, so did the photocopied paperwork.

What does this have to do with Google?  They're way ahead of the game in imagining a society without anonymity.  Sadly, it appears, they're going to blaze the trail of "inventing it," too.  It's hard to tell if anyone will eventually embrace it (could work, in a stateless society) but it seems inevitable.  For now, I keep private what makes sense, and what I can, to the extent that I can.*

* Within reason...for example, I do occasionally search by google, but do sensitive searches elsewhere.  I don't usually bother with proxies, but I'm not on facebook (and especially with my real name and bio), etc.

[anarchir]

I think this is relevant: I just picked up a book today, "The Anarchist in the Library" by Siva Vaidhyanathan. "how the clash between freedom and control is hacking the real world and crashing the system." Scanning it over, they use the words anarchy and oligarchy a lot.

[Cognitive Dissident]

I think this is relevant: I just picked up a book today, "The Anarchist in the Library" by Siva Vaidhyanathan. "how the clash between freedom and control is hacking the real world and crashing the system." Scanning it over, they use the words anarchy and oligarchy a lot.

Hmm...looks like it's only in hard cover.

[Alex Libman]

A free society without a "positive right to anonymity" is a good thing.  A lot of things in Anarcho-Capitalist theory require information to be openly available (ex. landowner registries, "open source" video camera feeds, public domain court evidence, etc, etc, etc).  The problem in the unfree society (i.e. as long as governments exist) is that you have one centralized Big Brother pulling all the strings, which means it can use this information to empower itself while others cannot.

[Cognitive Dissident]

That's pretty much how I figured...still, you can keep some things private if you really want to (by not disclosing them to anyone, except under contract.)  It'll take quite an adjustment, just like some of the whiners will have to adjust to the IP situation changing back to the pre-colonial era, when governments didn't pretend there was such a thing.

[Turd Ferguson]

Heres the thing though...........

I agree its pretty fucked up that google has all this info on everything you click, every post you make on a forum etc etc etc. Problem for them, or anyone who might want to use this info against any of us is that WE ALL DO IT.
Theres not enough manpower on the planet to go after every single person who visits a gun site, porn site, political site or whatever fucked up kind of site you could imagine. Its well beyond them being able to sort all that digital information, transfer it into real world physical fistfucks for all of us, beating down doors and taking guns away and such things. They simply dont have the manpower or fundage to carry that out and they never will. In fact, with just about every 1st world country on the planet facing financial collapse to some degree, it becomes less likely everyday.


Sure google might have record of everyone who visited a porn site. Now lets see the incompetent government do any real world crackdown or do anything else major about it. Hell, they cant even get my fucking vehicle registration information correct half the time, let alone sort out all the google information and put a plan of action into effect for going after porn site visitors or gun collectors.

I agree its fucked up, sure, but theres just not enough govt goons or money on the planet to pay said goons to even scratch the surface. They just like to make you BELIEVE they can make sense of all the information and act on it.

The govt SUCKS BALLS at everything they do................... including this.

[anarchir]

I think this is relevant: I just picked up a book today, "The Anarchist in the Library" by Siva Vaidhyanathan. "how the clash between freedom and control is hacking the real world and crashing the system." Scanning it over, they use the words anarchy and oligarchy a lot.

Hmm...looks like it's only in hard cover.

The book cost a dollar at the Dollar General. I didnt finish the first chapter. It was shit. If you cannot realize the fact that some anarchists believe in property rights, then you shouldnt write a book on anarchism. What an idiot. They pulled one of the "anarchists believe this" moves and failed.

[Alex Libman]

That's why I call myself a capitalist, not an anarchist.  Or an Anarcho-Capitalist at most (a chickpea is not a chicken).

In other news, Alex Jones has a video [BT] and articles bashing Google's proposed "net neutrality lite"...  Of course he gets it 100% wrong and calls for a government-regulated Internet...  Retard!  

[anarchir]

That's why I call myself a capitalist, not an anarchist.  Or an Anarcho-Capitalist at most (a chickpea is not a chicken).

In other news, Alex Jones has a video [BT] and articles bashing Google's proposed "net neutrality lite"...  Of course he gets it 100% wrong and calls for a government-regulated Internet...  Retard!  

Wrote a scathing review of them on my blog. http://sinpermiso.soup.io/ You should do one of these soup.io blogs, they're fun. Also, unlike me you are neck deep in agorism and really have a point of view to share that is not available elsewhere.

[Pilot_MKN]

Google might suck, but I tried Starpage.com's challenge and couldn't find what I wanted without going through a couple of pages of search results

[Cognitive Dissident]

Google might suck, but I tried Starpage.com's challenge and couldn't find what I wanted without going through a couple of pages of search results

I too think startpage's results are less-than-impressive.  I thought in one interview they were talking about submitting your search to Google on your behalf, among other things.  Don't know what happened to that.