Google bosses have forced employees to delete a confidential memo circulating inside the company that revealed explosive details about a plan to launch a censored search engine in China, The Intercept has learned.
The memo, authored by a Google engineer who was asked to work on the project, disclosed that the search system, code-named Dragonfly, would require users to log in to perform searches, track their location – and share the resulting history with a Chinese partner who would have “unilateral access” to the data.
These are the requirements set forth by the Chinese government that you must fulfil in order to do business of this kind in China. It’s the same reason why Apple handed over all of its iCloud data to a company owned and run by the Chinese government – if you want to make money in China, you have to play by their rules. It just goes to show that while these companies make romp and stomp about caring about the privacy of western users, said care goes right out the window if it means they can make more money. Your privacy does not matter – only money matters.
And yes, they will do the same thing here in the west the moment it’s financially advantagous for them to do so.
… you need to play by their rules, too.
Well well well, there’s always a glorious and advantageous story to be made out of a respectable move : https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/mar/22/google-china…
But… https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/why-google-qu…
“And yes, they will do the same thing here in the west the moment it’s financially advantagous for them to do so.”
How utterly naive of you to think they are not already. How many times do companies have to get caught before the general public realizes large corporations think everything is fair game when it comes to monetizing the Public?
I don’t think it’s in full blast. But yes, people routinely trade privacy and freedom for convenience and cheapness.
If/when this happens in the west, there will be about a month of people complaining, but then the vast majority of people will have forgotten/moved on and just live with it.
What will people do? NOT buy and Android or iPhone? NOT use Google search? NOT use Apple Maps or Google Maps? No, people in the large will just gripe about it and then continue on the way they were before.
Edited 2018-09-21 23:23 UTC
You don’t have to be THAT dramatic. Just don’t do anything on these services/devices that you wouldn’t want in tomorrow morning’s headlines. For example, do I care if my gym routine and shopping list on Google Keep gets leaked to the world? No.
So, whenever you’re planning your next murder, that is the time to be privacy-minded. Use TOR when researching ways to dispose of the body, and don’t carry your cell phone to the scene of the crime.
Actually, I don’t want my shopping list published in the paper either. It’s no-one’s business what I plan to buyers. That’s my life, not necessary public knowledge.
It’s wrong to imply that privacy is only valuable to criminals. Privacy is valuable to anyone who wishes to maintain the idea of individual autonomy.
Edited 2018-09-23 01:34 UTC
Google survives my monetizing your information. They do that by selling to you. I know that in theory they could publish your shopping list, but they are far more likely to do your shopping for you :-).
In fact publishing your shipping list would be giving away the IP they have created from you.
That’s an interesting choice of words, since, on a chemical level, you really have no individual autonomy. People go through life scared shitless at the notion that they might be the same as everyone else; if they only knew.
We don’t analyze human relationships on the chemical level. Ask a chemistry professor to write a history book on the chemical level, and see if it makes any sense. Ask a couple to explain their love for each-other on a molecular level, and see if it still seems like love. Describe a beautiful painting by individually listing the wavelengths of light that reflect from it, and see if anyone is impressed.
Edited 2018-09-23 19:49 UTC
Maybe we should though? Perhaps we wouldn’t suffer so much or be so damn judgmental, once we begin to really understand why people do the things they do on a fundamental level.
Or is that too much reality for peoples’ every day delusions? Perhaps the movie won’t be as good if you learn to understand how it’s made.
Or it could be reductionist to the extreme, and leave us with a nuance-free and oversimplified understanding of humans. Just look at the governments that attempted to rule according to Scientific principles.
“if you asked me how a motor car worked you would think me somewhat pompous if I answered in terms of Newton’s laws and the laws of thermodynamics, and downright obscurantist if I answered in terms of fundamental particles.” – Richard Dawkins
Edited 2018-09-24 03:09 UTC
As opposed to what? Assuming people who don’t agree with us, esp. politically, are cartoon villains and a waste of space?
As opposed to assuming that humanity is more dignified than a compilation of chemical reactions and that human autonomy is worth preserving.
Edited 2018-09-24 19:40 UTC
That’s the point though – you can’t preserve something that never existed in the first place. You can keep pretending if you like, but you’re going to suffer for it. And quite needlessly too.
That, of course, doesn’t mean you have to let these companies pilfer every solitary piece of information about your life, but if it’s not private in any tangible way that really matters, just let it go, and take advantage of the convenience that these services offer.
Edited 2018-09-24 22:08 UTC
But that’s the point – it does exist. Just because something is emergent doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
An ancient man would hardly understand a “normal” explanation of how a motor car works, either. It’s progress …I for one kinda hope to see the days when you can explain it in terms of Newton laws and thermodynamics.
I did buy an Android phone. However…
I use DuckDuckGo, and access Google Maps exclusively via Firefox. My Firefox lock down is a whole separate issue. I have also shut down all location and Web services, and denied a bunch of permissions. No syncing to Google, either. Most provided apps have been uninstalled or disabled. I use F-Droid as a software repository, even to the point of replacing the provided e-mail and texting apps. I run my own domain for e-mail (Google doesn’t need to connect to it). I use a VPN that I created with the help of Ars Technica and various other sources. All browsing, and everything else goes through it.
I can’t say that I have missed any conveniences. What I don’t miss is Google messaging me in a restaurant parking lot, asking me to go back inside and take pictures of the place I just ate at (yes, Google is that creepy).
And yes, they will do the same thing here in the west the moment it’s financially advantagous for them to do so
Can someone give me a good reason why I should actually knowingly use Google for anything (especially search) these days?
I’d love to remove a huge chunk of my firewall DENY rules (sic).
I do wonder though what Google does when it has to handle two conflicting pieces of relevant law?
For example – the GDPR affects the data of all EU citizens, regardless of where they are. And Chinese backdooring likely affects EU citizens in China.
There may well be a way to walk the line in that particular case but there’s going to come a point where two rules from two major trade regions come into conflict… and Google will have to pick one, or get in a lot of trouble.
Maybe not to a specific mail address though I guess they do at least if using a google account.
But they aren’t the worst.
We need a new WWW to fix the serious problems of the old one IMHO.
Thom, it may be a more defensive move than you suggest, and I’m saying that as someone who refused to use a smart phone for this very reason long before the Snowden leaks.
Apple and Google are scared of Chinese competition, and with good reason. They don’t want a situation in which they have zero presence in a market with 1.4 billion people, especially if Chinese companies simultaneously deliver products that appeal to US consumers. That would be a repeat of what clobbered the US auto industry in the 1970 and ’80s.
My guess is that they would do this even if they were barely breaking even there.
Edited 2018-09-22 23:52 UTC
How dare you come here spouting facts, nuance and reasoned conclusions you brute!
“Because the only thing I hate more than hippy neo-liberal fascists and anarchists, are the hypocrite fat cat suits they eventually become!”
Because, when you think about it, that is what Apple and Google have become.
Yes but this does not go both ways seeing the flood of counterfeit copycat products coming out of china which don’t comply with neither EU nor FCC regulations. If you manufacture your stuff there and it has substantial IP value then rest of sure they will steal it, copy it, maybe even patent it in their own country that is why we have to bring production back to the west.
If I buy a swiss army knife I expect it that from the blade to the plastic cover and screws be manufactured in Switzerland, not Made in the PRC.
It is all greed which started this manufacturing madness in China and now it comes back to hunt all of those companies who did because China steals everything!
For all intensive purposes…
For water’s worth…
xfire,
Often times when it comes to “IP”, people and even the media like to use broad oversimplifications and using the word “stealing” in this context is one of those cases. In fact the word should be “copying”. There is a big difference here. For one country to literally steal from another would cause the original owner to loose possession of that which was stolen. However one country has no moral obligation to oblige another country’s stance on patents and copyrights. Nothing in the “IP” world gets stolen, only copied. Countries have autonomy and can make their own laws on copying within their own borders.
I understand why this would annoy some people, especially those who wish to be able to sell copies around the world regardless of jurisdiction, but this is intrinsically limited by the fact that copyright laws are not universal. Unless someone believes in imperialism, one group imposing their laws on everyone else through coercion is generally kind of evil. Unless there are human rights abuses or threats to life to justify it, then the sovereignty of other countries should be respected. Installing copyright regimes in foreign countries doesn’t pass that bar.
Edit: I do actually agree with you about impersonating trademarks and deception, but I get the distinct impression that consumers who are buying these dirt cheap products (including me) aren’t buying them because they’ve been fooled about their brand authenticity, but rather because they wanted to buy dirt cheap products. Politicians and companies in the west have been making excuses, but the fact is simply that china is better than us at delivering what consumers want for cheaper than we can.
Edited 2018-09-24 18:16 UTC