Fed skewers Google over Tweetbookish Gmail mod

An outgoing commissioner with the US Federal Trade Commission has laid into Google for the privacy-envelope-pushing launch of Google Buzz, that web-based thingy that turned Gmail into a Tweetbookish social networking service. "I am especially concerned that technology companies are learning harmful lessons from each other's …

[Eddie Edwards]

Citation required

"Like Facebook, Google's primary aim is to expose user data"

Slightly melodramatic? I think the primary aim of both companies is profit. They may well expose user data if they think it'll help them achieve/increase profitability, but exposing user data is hardly their "primary aim", any more than El Reg's "primary aim" is to peddle hyperbole.

[Nexox Enigma]

Not Quite...

"""I think the primary aim of both companies is profit."""

While I agree that the original sentence was a bit inaccurate, your claim that Facebook's number one goal is profit is entirely so. I've heard that FB's policy is something like "Making money will make us lose users" from a number of pretty reliable sources. And clearly Google isn't trying to make money so much as they're trying to take over the Internet / World.

[Anonymous Coward]

In that case you might as well say:

their primary aim is collectively breathing. Next comes eating. And so on. There is no point in stating the bleeding obvious, or indeed of qualifying your statements to the effect that you are not stating it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have I missed something?

"Like Facebook, Google's primary aim is to expose user data."

Umm but in Facebook (and Google!) you can turn privacy on and share data only with people you have approved...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't own the server

Then how do you know exactly how they are using your data and/or who they give it to?

Google enable the authorities to look over your emails/contacts if they want to "investigate a crime" or suspect you of "terrorism" as do facebook and hotmail. Check wikileaks if you fancy looking over their spy guides.

[Mike Flex]

Re: Have I missed something?

> ...in Facebook ... you can turn privacy on and share data only with people you have approved...

Well, you can, until FB send you a "security update" that opens up all your data again.