The 800lb Googilla in the boardroom

Google, like the legendary 800lb gorilla which got elected to the board, has reached the sort of size and influence where it can sit where it likes in the boardroom. Two questions: 1) should we do something to protect ourselves from this 800lb gorilla? and 2) if so, what? The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was pretty …

[Chad H.]

Google allowed to dominate like no Competition body would allow?

Ummmm, How do you justify that comment? I mean, its clearly abusrd.

First off, there are a variety of other search engines out there built on other technology. Plus, it only takes a couple of Caltech, or MIT guys to do what google did, build a better mousetrap (or seach engine), and watch everyone slowly but surely move over. Theres nothing special to the google story, it happened several times before they did it (yahoo, Altavista, anyone?).

In addition, Google allows its technolgy to be used by others. How many other seach "engines" out there use googles tech? Lots. Like the Major Telcos (Which are real monopolies) are forced into LLU, Google (Which isnt a real monopoly, face it) allows others to use its tech for their own uses, something it hasnt been "forced" to do at all.

I'm no Google Evangelist, I'm looking forward to the better seach engine the Next Berkley grad builds (Lets face it, Googles too full of crap these days anyway, its just like the pre-google altavista), but to call it a monopoly is rediculous.

Its clear you have a chip on your shoulder about a little bit of poor customer service and have used this as an excuse to launch into a torrent of abuse.

Grow up.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they do nothing wrong then what do they have to hide?

Isn't the usual claim "if you're doing nothing wrong then what do you have to hide?". How about looking at it from the other angle.

Suppose for a minute that Google put on its website all the information it knows about you.

So you could log into your GMail account and instead of a generic privacy policy, it let you see all the IP addresses you had logged in from and when (from Gmail), all the searches you did while you were known (from Google), all the sites you visited (from Adsense and Google Analytics), all the details you've given Google via all their different services.

IF GOOGLE IS DOING NOTHING WRONG THEN WHAT DO THEY HAVE TO HIDE?

If its acceptable to the customer to collect that information then its OK for the customer to SEE the information that's been collected about them. It is, after all, THEIR information. And if they find that they really don't want to let people see their own information, then perhaps Google shouldn't be collecting it in the first place!

That recent EU ruling means that even if the UK has no privacy law, UK citizens are entitled to privacy under their EU Fundamental human rights. *Entitled*.

[Gary Heard]

Responsible Companies

You cannot prevent the greed of man turning all companies towards being rapacious beasts. It is a fundamental rule of capitalism that you maximise your return to your shareholders. In the USA you can be sued if a shareholder believes the Company Directors have not done their best to produce the maximum possible return. Small, Private Companies generally have better ethics as they are concerned as much with their customers as the environment they deal in. They also, generally, do not have the access to large funds, those that do, and eventually become Public Limited Companies almost invariably change both their business structure and have a degradation in their ethical standards as the Lawyers and Bankers get involved

[amanfromMars]

GoogleMania .......Temporary Temporal Memory Loss.

It does mean "we'll explain why we did things." For example, when it takes down pictures of a ruined New Orleans and substitutes sanitised pre-hurricane ones, it tells us how the cockup occurred......Surely.

Much rather than any Thought of Dysfunctional Disorder.....Surely?

[Anonymous Coward]

AdSense Nightmares

If you have ever had one of those random messages from Google AdSense to say you are breaking one of their myriad rules and another trangression will result in immediate account deletion and loss of all accumulated funds you will also have had this experience.

You write back asking which rule in particular you are breaking because you weren't knowingly breaking any rules and you don't want to be kicked out of the AdSense programme, needing the income from it, etc.

You will get a short, nearly rude reply basically saying our terms and rules can be found at xxx. Another reply from you asking which rules in particular are being broken because you can't see anything that applies to you will result in the answer "we don't provide this information in these cases. It is up to you to make sure you aren't breaking the rules" - this despite the fact that you have already twice stated you don't appear to be breaking any rules.

The whole process is very frustrating and can be quite stressful if AdSense if the single or main source of income for a site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Five minutes of my life wasted !

What an appalling, whiney, pointless diatribe.

Google, like every business has one ethic.....

"Make Money For The Shareholders"

If you don't like them, don't deal with them.

Shoddy journalism and, yes, in fact, you are a blogger Q.E.D.

[Terry Bernstein]

For Google - ethics

If there's one area that needs to be at the forefront; remembering that Google isn't an advertising agency, it's more like a news agency, I'd say they should remember about "Publish and be damned".

[Robin]

I have to agree with Mark_T on this one.

Not up to the Reg standards.

First point, the writer clearly doesn't understand dogs. Dogs are animals. Pure and simple. Given proper motivation, any dog, no matter how well trained, will break from disipline and attack someone or something. Accepting that, the question then becomes one of damage caused. In that situation, I'll happily take the anklebiter over the throat-ripping variety of dog any day.

The same is true of business. Given the right circumstances, any business can be motivated to act improperly. Accepting that, again, it is a question of damage.

Have we so soon forgotten Sony and thier little rootkit incident? Certainly they are a big enough company to earn an 800 lb gorilla suit. And what did they do with it? As the old joke goes, anything they wanted, which in this case meant damaging thousands of computers.

Large companies need *more* regulation, not less. We've seen this time and again with scandals like Enron, Anderson and Nortel. These gorillas all relied on trust to deceive, defraud and bilk shareholders out of milliions.

Bottom line, you can train, test and trust all you like, but when the big dogs bite, people get hurt.

P.S. If you do own a Chow-chow and you wander around the park with it unmuzzled and off leash, most dog owners will consider you irresponsible. And they'd be right. It's a sure recipe for disaster, either to you, someone else, their dog, or your dog.

[AndyB]

Its the owners you need to be scared of

"If you see a Rottweiler in the park, and it's walking along with its owner, without a muzzle and without a lead, you can relax. You're pretty much certain that it's a well-behaved beast"

Have you seen the kind of people who tend to own Rottweilers? They're often scarier than the dogs.

I'd much rather come across some little old lady with a snappy yorkie than some microcephalic thug with a Rottweiler!!!

[Pascal Monett]

Sure they are

"If you see a Rottweiler in the park, and it's walking along with its owner, without a muzzle and without a lead, you can relax. You're pretty much certain that it's a well-behaved beast, because something that big, strong and deadly simply can't be let loose in public if it is in any way vicious."

Yeah, well-behaved, muscular angels they are. Just like the two adorable mutts that ate the throat and face of their own owner a few months ago.

If I see a Rottweiler without a muzzle, whether or not it's with its owner, I call the cops and get a gun.

[Albert]

It's all about business

Google is a business and not a public service.

If they had to reply to every email with a personal response their overheads would go through the roof and the business would be damaged.

We play with Google because despite the risks the potential wins are great.

I also agree that Google is now like AltaVista after its initial surge. Full of useless links.

Roll on the next generation with a new idea. Inbound links isn’t good enough anymore no matter how fancy the algorithm is.

[richard m]

Paddy Fit?

So the authors site was overlooked by google and in response the author decides to write a thinly veiled 'hissy fit' article. I'm sure google don't wish for their news service to be overloaded with articles of the "Double Desker Bus found at the North Pole" nature.

Judging by this article it is no wonder that the site was overlooked.