When Your CEO Suggests Moving In Response To Privacy Questions, Time For A New CEO
from the out-of-touch dept
Yikes. There are plenty of reasons why Google's Street View offering is not the privacy nightmare that some people are trying to turn it into. It's a public view of things that anyone can see. It's also static and way out of date. But, Google's going to run into problems if it keeps letting CEO Eric Schmidt comment on the various privacy concerns people are raising. While we were among those who mocked the ridiculously over-exaggerated anti-Google video made by the group Consumer Watchdog, that tried to portray Eric Schmidt as a creepy old man spying on everything you do, Schmidt himself isn't doing the company any favors lately. We already had mentioned his bizarre idea that kids might change their names upon becoming adults in the future, but Schmidt just keeps on making rather creepy statements about privacy that suggests someone totally out of touch with what people are actually complaining about.John Paczkowski has a list of Schmidt's rather tone-deaf responses to privacy questions lately:
- Addressed criticisms of Google's stance on privacy by saying, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
- Claimed people want Google to "tell them what they should be doing next."
- Said of Google, "We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about."
- Said this: "One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that."
- Suggested name changes to protect adults from the Web's record of their youthful indiscretions.
- Said this: "What we're really doing is building an augmented version of humanity, building computers to help humans do the things they don't do well better."
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: creepy, eric schmidt, privacy
Companies: google
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Dr. Schmidt! Tear Down Those Lies! [CNN interview]
You can see the video and good analysis of two critical points Eric made on Christopher Soghoian's blog: http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2010/10/eric-schmidts-blames-eu-for-googles.html
Worth reviewing and drawing your own conclusions.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Dr. Schmidt! Tear Down Those Lies! [CNN interview]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Subject
Ridiculous.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I did watch the clip, and I agree that it's somewhat out of context -- as are all of the comments, actually.
But that's the issue: Schmidt isn't thinking through -- at all -- how his comments will be perceived. It's pretty bad.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Your title: "[Schmidt] Suggests Moving In Response To Privacy Questions" is not true. That was not a suggestion in response to a question, he was pointing out that if you moved Streetview wouldn't know it because it's not monitoring anything and it's not real time.
The article you linked to states: "Eric Schmidt’s suggestion that people who don’t like the company publishing pictures of their homes and businesses on its Street View service should move to protect their privacy" also NOT what he said AT ALL.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
I agree, but he seems to say a *lot* of stuff that can be taken seriously out of context. It looks bad for the company. All of these situations are ones where there are perfectly reasonable responses, and Schmidt almost never seems to make those responses.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Everything can be taken out of context. You'd have to be some sort of super human to be able to think of all the ways something can be taken out of context in the microsecond before you say it. Last time I looked Schmidt was a mere human being.
BTW you should know, you have one or more trolls here that do nothing but take what you say out of context.
Here's the thing: you can either try to understand what he's trying to say, or look for ways to misinterpret what he says.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Google knows this, and yet they keep doing astonishingly stupid things while Schmidt constantly says stuff that makes him sound so out-of-touch it's ridiculous. I understand the real meaning of a lot of those Schmidt quotes, and I even wholeheartedly agree with him on a couple of them (when understood in context) - but the simple fact is he needs to keep his mouth shut and think before he speaks.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Misinterpretation
What's creepy is how obsessed some people can be with twisting every word this guy says in the most negative possible way.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Misinterpretation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Misinterpretation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Misinterpretation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Misinterpretation
(WTF, CNN?)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Misinterpretation
Sure, you and I on techdirt may understand that he was taken out of context. But the general public generally believes whatever the MSM tells the to.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hah!
Schmidt: Under a federal court order, properly delivered to us, we might be forced do that, but otherwise no.
Question: Does that happen very often?
Schmidt: Very rarely and if its not formally delivered, then we'll fight it.
Oh yeah, just like they've distinguished themselves by fighting improperly formatted DMCA takedowns and such....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"incredibly out of touch and totally disconnected"
"Google doesn't do data mining" is one you missed. To me it's the most indicative of all: he flatly denies Google's over-arching purpose, thereby confirming it. A flat denial like that (as Clinton: "I did not have sex with that woman") just borders on psychopathic. If you try to hedge that Google merely provides data to others (as I suspect Schmidt might have been attempting) then it's actually worse, still a lie, and we'll certainly want to know what entities those are.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/23/schmidt_on_colbert/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Everything to these people is a "slippery slope" and I believe Schmidt is simply looking to point out how ridiculous their concerns are.
If he WASN'T being a smartass I'd think those around him (and shareholders) would have him carted off to the nervous hospital long ago.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- That actually sounds like a reasonable analysis of what Google is doing. It's a funny way of saying it, but it's accurate.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
hooray soundbites
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I would also think it might be illegal if they somehow tied in the algorithm which adds advertisements to gmail to a stock market predictor.
Tried finding some explanation via google :) but nothing popped out for me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anyone else reminded of FATE from Chrono Cross?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]