
my guess is
He doesn't view the NSA as a competitor …
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has taken to Twitter and labelled Google worse than the NSA. Here's The Dirty Digger's missive: NSA privacy invasion bad, but nothing compared to Google. — Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) August 17, 2014 Murdoch and Google have history, with the former accusing the latter of stealing his …
In other news, the Reg commenter Khaptain has had a charge of libel filed against them by a Mr. Ebola Virus. In a brief statement to the press Mr. Ebola vehemently denied being anything near as bad as Mr. Murdoch and vowed to pursue the case to the fullest extent of the law.
The "truth", in this case, is riding into town on the back of a vested interest. A little bit like what's currently happening in Oz with the broadband rollout. Trouble is people like Murdoch are greedy, grasping bastards, they want it all and will never stop trying to get it, usually at any cost. There's no attempt to forward mankind, it's purely about the dollars.
Murdoch is a cranky old coot who, whatever his achievements in life and business, is simply incapable of understanding - much less relating to - ordinary people.
This is the only mitigating factor; he is so out of touch that he seems genuinely not to realise just how poorly his conduct and opinions accord with those of the common folk.
For one , I got to agree with Rupert. Google opens every email and checks them , They collect all your searches ever , they know more about anyone and everyone than we care to know.
The NSA don't resell their users .Google and Facebook do and are the two worse enemies of privacy liberty and freedom ever.
"The NSA don't resell their users"
Yet... or even "As far as we know!" given their secretive nature with absolutely everything.
Wait till the Utah datacenter is built and fully utilized before we jump to conclusions, eh?
The NSA is several orders of magnitude worse than Google, as nobody is forcing you to use Google services. You can adblock *doubleclick.net for example and you are also not forced to email *@gmail.com domains or even use YouTube.
However, the NSA is completely unavoidable unless you don't use a computer, Telephone, Fax machine, Mobile phone, or any device capable of remote communication.
"However, the NSA is completely unavoidable unless you don't use a computer, Telephone, Fax machine, Mobile phone, or any device capable of remote communication."
By which time they would be very interested in you , since you must have something to hide if you....etc...
The NSA don't resell their users
They most certainly do.
The Snowden documents show situations where an evidence trail has been fabricated becasue someone actually got caught through an NSA snoop, with the data then (unlawfully) being passed on to DEA or similar.
It is alleged - and unproven, naturally - that snooped data is also passed onto US businesses to give them a competitive edge.
So the NSA is certainly reselling data - I just don't yet know how much I care about that.
Vic.
... because you are on the right track, IMHO.
"The NSA don't resell their users .Google and Facebook do and are the two worse enemies of privacy liberty and freedom ever."
The insidious act here is not collecting data but rather "front running" personal information.
It rate of collection depends only on the hardware infrastructure. The NSA, Google and Facebook have these resources in megamultiples of you and I.
Be afraid of the NSA because their minions might act in haste - and irreversibly - on noise.
Be afraid of Google and Facebook (et al.) because they sell back doors and faster access to the noise product if you are a front runner with lots of cash.
Things could get worse if the NSA were to behave like Google, Facebook, et al..
The only way things get better is to fine the bejesus out of spam enablers.
While the the NSA may not directly sell their [information on] users, they most definitely pass it outside of their organisation and - worse - outside of the legal remit under which it was collected.
The NSA is collecting information they shouldn't be collecting, using it for purposes it wasn't intended for, disclosing it to agencies and (if the leaks are true) commercial entities that aren't supposed to see it, hiding it from the public and lying about it all to congress.
And you agree with Uncle Rupert that Google is worse than the NSA . . .
You've got to understand a fundamental difference, which is that Google scans your e-mails (and is up front about it) to better sell you advertising. The NSA scans your e-mails to find key words and phrases and then uses those as justification to compile phone records, car GPS data, full Internet browsing history, and will do so for your friends, family and co-workers as well. It might then choose to forward that information to the DEA or the IRS.
That's not conspiracy theory time - that's actually what's happening.
Unfortunately it'll be parrotted out by the editors of all his newspapers soon enough. Still, it makes a change from him having a go at all his competitors (BBC, etc), either directly or by proxy.
I prefer to hear about the various missives of the Dirty Digger and all Murdocracy concerns by reading Private Eye...
@MrT
Actually, it won't be a change at all because he doesn't have a go at competitors, specifically.
Murdoch is one of those people who firmly and genuinely believe that it is his right to earn as much money as humanly possible. His newspapers therefore go after anyone and everyone that form a barrier to the pursuit of that money.
Murdoch's newspapers have always been notable for how utterly in sync they are in pushing whatever objective is handed down. Anyone in Australia during the last election cycle couldn't fail to notice it, with the numerous papers Newscorp owns relentlessly attacking Labor while praising the character of the Coalition.
He does the same thing in the UK, and the US of course though the near-blanket coverage he has here makes it particularly obscene.
For those in the UK, there was the support for Thatcher and the Tories, who in turn helped rush through his takeover of the Times, which then was used to support Thatcher all the more strongly, helping her to another election win. She then supported him through his fights with the unions, both politically and by promising strong police support, a link that has been pointed to as the starting point for the hacking scandals.
Thatcher later repaid Murdoch's continued support further by helping bring about the merger of BSB and Sky to make BSkyB.
His turn to support 'New Labour' and Tony Blair was to put pressure on him in regards to the impending cross-media ownership laws as well as regulations to restrict the predatory pricing he was employing to drive his competitors out of business. At least some of his ongoing unholy alliance with Blair is now well known thanks to the Leveson enquiry (which also brought out some of the Thatcher dealings) and they continued right up to Blair's resignation (and beyond).
After that he switched again, supporting the Conservatives, who were helping him with his bid to take full control of BSkyB - a move that only failed due to the eruption of the phone hacking scandal.
In Australia he played much the same game, jumping from Labor to Liberal as his needs dictated, supporting Whitlam then helping to bring him down. Supporting Hawke and Keating, who helped him takeover several local tabloids and thus attain dominance over the state-based presses but then backing Howard (again with cross-media ownership laws on the table). After that it was back to Labor for Rudd before the most recent and overt support of Abbott and the Coalition.
At each stage, he has bargained his support to earn more money - whether it was in helping smash the unions, getting huge subsidies on prime real estate (Fox Studios, say), enabling him to buy more than he should have been allowed to or to head off laws and regulations that would potentially collar his papers. Some believe that his support of Abbott and the coalition owed much to the scuppering of the NBN as he saw it as a threat to his cable television interests.
So that is Murdoch - someone whose only desire is for more money and power and who will opportunistically support whomever he has the most to gain from.
Dealing with opinions of Murdock and his warped views of the world. You have had a few but my opinions of the duffer run along the lines of:
Murdock is worse than plague
Murdock is worse than ISIS
Murdock is worse than Al-Qa'ida
Murdock is worse than your worst nightmare
Murdock is worse than a gang of drug crazed muggers
He ruined the print media, he ruined television, now he wants to wreak the internet.
Can the devil please come back out of retirement and swap roles back with him so letting the poor demented fool fester in peace somewhere.
"You forgot FOOTY. Glad to know there are no Sky subscribers here. No RegReader would be so duplicitous?"
Yeah, because not everyone lives in a Virgin Media Cable network you insensitive clod.
So yes, I do have Sky until Virgin cable gets here, I won't be holding my breath for that.
Go on hating.. At least I don't buy NewsCorp rags.
Looking at my trusty ghosetery - just by looking at EL Reg google tracks me (google analytics)
I go to say TED.com - oh look google analytics again
A List Apart - google analyitcs again
Rapid Elearning Blog - google again
Adobe TV - doubleclick (aka google again)
Australian Bureau of Meterology - oh look a google
There is of course a spectacular own goal - the News Ltd Herald Sun (Australia) - Adsense, analytics AND custom search
These site are in my bookmarks so I don't just "google" them
Let me draw a picture for you then ...
I go directly to sites without using google that have absolutey nothing to do with google - but I have little option (unless I have ghostery) to hand over my browsing history as google have infested nearly every freaking site on the interwebs - i really don't see anything funny about that.
Yes the sites decide to opt in, but if I want to access anything at all there is the F!@$~!@%$%@#4 google tracker watching watching watching...
And the citicism of Murdoch I see here is typical of lefties - play the man, not the argument. Yes he may not be a nice man or have the policies you agree with but that does not mean he doesn't have a point.
"And the citicism of Murdoch I see here is typical of lefties - play the man, not the argument."
This "rightie" also thinks the man is a hypocritical arse, jealous of the virtual monopoly created by Google, angry that his own attempts to do the same amounted to little.
Bravo @Jagged. It's certainly not about Left or Right. The man, through his minions, hacked the phone of a murdered school girl. He has had every UK government since '79 frit of his news machine, not because it shines a light on truth, but because he, not the people of the United Kingdom, sets the agenda.
"You should install a little thing like no-script. Its a bit of a faf at first to set up the permissions how you want them. But after that, google analytics and google-anything is blocked from running."
He mentioned Ghostery, so that's a good start, but yes: NoScript (once the fiddly faffing is out of the way) + Ghostery + A sensible cookie policy (again with a bit of faffing at first for those you want to allow) = A good browsing experience.
" Anonymous Coward
Re: On which internet is google an "opt-in site" ?
Unless the site you want that has the oh-so-exclusive content runs an ad-blocker-blocker, detects you block all the Google stuff, and gives the ultimatum: Allow all the spam stuff or you don't get our content.
"
Do you want to go to a site like that?? It actually makes alarm bells and flashing neonsigns reading "MALWARE DANGER, GET OUT" go off for me.
Out of the mouth's of Cow Heards pearls of wisdom :-)
There is something else you have to do too.
Make sure the "Country Code" of your Loopback server is "XZ". This is "Installations in International Waters" in the UN-LOCODE system. This is an ISO "User Defined" Code. For a three character code (FIFA World Cup, etc. use those), I use XZZ because either XZ or ZZ are User Defined. The "civil" spooks in the US (NGA) use "UF" for "Undersea Features". You are kind of limited because there are no three character codes defined. However, if a transliteration of "UF" resolves to both "XZ" and "XZZ" you should be ok.
If the prying eyes of Social Networks were told that everyone were out of cannon shot range (this is where the "Three Mile Limit" comes from) then prying eyes would be shit-out-of-luck.
The "generic" jurisdiction violations would quickly become hugely expensive - a milking machine for arseholes. Well done Cow Heard.
Hang on, I think I have a new game here to replace rock, paper, scissors - and is less complicated than Sheldon's rock, paper, scissors, lizard, spock.
It's called: News of the World, Google, NSA:
News of the World beats (is worse than) Google.
Google beats (is worse than) the NSA.
NSA beats (is worse than) News of the World.
Does anyone think it'll catch on? I'm wondering if it's worth getting it patented with the USPTO!
his influence on the media is known as the "murdocracy". At the risk of being rude my comment to him is FUCK OFF MURDOCH. The world does not revolve around you, and 5 years after you're gone no-one will give a flying fuck about you. You need adjust your business practices to suit the new order, not the other way around.
One problem is that what people "opt-in" to are different nice services, or maybe just the possibility to use their phone (Android) or computer (Chromebook), but what they also get without knowing is different kinds of hidden and secret surveillance that runs without any scrutiny at all, by a private company that actually makes its money by knowing as much as possible about its users.
OK, let's look at this logically, ignoring FUD, fanboyism, or paranoia.
Let's face it; Google must go through more scrutiny than any other on-line company, since they are constantly under the eye of most Governments - they are an easy target, potential monopoly, with a lot of funding (not to mention the tax avoidance).
Also, they are pretty open with what they do and how they use your data. It's also obvious what they do with it. They're not going to sell it to anyone, they'll make more money from using your data themselves than they would selling it.
They appear to respect your "opt-out". There have been no reports of them using your own data against you (eg, the hotmail case)
Pick another large company (even one that doesn't serve ads) - could you say the same about that?
[Fanboy check: The only Google products I use are search, maps, I've bought a Chromebook for my mother, I once had an Android phone (now iPhone), Chrome is my secondary browser (after FF), I'm a Windows developer]
"[Google] are pretty open with what they do and how they use your data. It's also obvious what they do with it."
Oh really?
Forgotten about the whole GoogleView car saga?
"We're just taking photos, nothing else"
"No, we are absolutely not sniffing WiFi networks"
"OK, we are sniffing them, but we are absolutely not storing the data, trust us, we are not evil"
"Well, OK, we do store it as well, but honest, we don't do anything with it. Do No Evil lollerzzzz"
Google? Open about what they do?
That'll be the day.
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And then the gov'ts said whoa! you can't delete that data, we have to investigate so keep it on hand so each group of us can ask for it over and over and ... Years it took for Google to be *allowed* to delete it.
"Its so sad when there is a bunch of a$$holes in charge of us. Sigh." Yes.
Yes, because Google are so short on internet infrastructure, they need to go wardriving.
Seriously, they admitted they were storing MACs and their location. This may or may not be something to be concerned about, but do you really think Google wanted to crack the private emails etc. of wi-fi users? Especially when considering there was no way to tie an online user to this data in a way to improve ad targetting,
"Especially when considering there was no way to tie an online user to this data in a way to improve ad targetting,"
There's always a way to tie an online user. Cleartext metadata will suffice. Heck, didn't researchers show they can correlate identifiable information from an encrypted connection using timing attacks? Face it. Data mining is the specialty of companies like Google. These firms basically strive to ensure no privacy in this world.
Agree with Mage. The government is accountable to you in at least *some* way. Google isn't, particularly if you live outside the US. Eg. People can issue FoE requests to UK government departments, who must give some sort of answer by law. This has led to the uncovering of several scandals. You can't do that with Google. However, if the guv'mint and Google get together, that is the biggest risk.
Got Android ? Check below to see if Google has been tracking you (they weren't tracking me)
http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/8/17/6025339/google-maps-is-tracking-everywhere-you-go
At least in the US, my concern is that those who govern (and their hired and appointed minions) are supremely ignorant of and indifferent to what either NSA or Google do, as long as it benefits the special interests who get them elected.
The question is whether we voters will get out collective act together, and learn how to use the power of the "net to hold them accountable at the polls, before they gain absolute control.
When the NSA and t'other Five Eyes snoop in secret it's under the dubious cover of nashonal' skurity and protecting the populace.
When Gogle snoops, at least you get a hint they're looking in your browsers tickertape,.. under the dubious cover of improving service.. (Anybody here ever bought anything from a targeted ad ?)
When Murdochs outfit snooped it was to make more money... under the dubious cover of.. nah just make more money
I'd be more concerned if Vladimir Putin said that Google was worse than the NSA. That could have consequences for people in Russia trying to find things on the Internet.
Had Rupert Murdoch said that Facebook was worse than the NSA, then one could have a rational debate; the NSA eavesdrops on people who haven't first entered into a contractual agreement with the NSA, for example.
It's true Google is more ubiquitous than Facebook, but so far they only appear to be keeping track of our search habits to serve us advertisements. Of course, the NSA does absolutely nothing with data on most of us, so in one sense Rupert Murdoch is quite right.
"So we've no idea just what his complaint is with Google, why he thinks an opt-in site is worse than a perhaps-not-entirely-constitutional surveillance program that collects data on individuals it has no reason to suspect deserve any scrutiny whatsoever."
People keep forgetting that Google is not just that cheerful lab that produces the best web search engine.
It's also Doubleclick, the biggest and most feared online ad network.
It's also Google Analytics, which webmasters invite onto their own web sites because web hosts suck at providing useful data. In the process, Google gets even more data from me about every site I visit that has Google Analytics. I didn't sign up for this.
It's also Google Maps, that has pictures of my house and my place of work from many angles, along with detailed information about all my wireless routers. Sometimes, it has recognizable pictures of myself or someone close to me; they blur it, but I'm sure they have access to the originals.
It's also Chrome, which is influencing web standards in a negative direction. We do not need a new binary web app format, since the demise of Flash and ActiveX. We do not need more patents. We do not need more DRM. All of these, Chrome is promoting.
It's also Android, which is increasingly Google "Play" and not Android Open Source. That flap about Facebook Messenger? That could totally have been avoided if Google had finished developing fine-grained privacy controls for Android. Instead, they're going the opposite way, allowing programs to share permissions with less user awareness.
I don't know why Murdoch has issue with Google, but I can understand why people think it's not good for privacy.
"Doubleclick", "Google Analytics", "Google Maps", "Chrome", "Android"
And yet folks don't seem to have cottoned on to ajax.googleapis.com which webmasters everywhwere seem to be embracing.
Unlike Analytics, you can't block ajax.googleapis.com and get full functionality out of these sites.
They'll probably be able to see through your private browsing based on uniquely human traits such as typing styles and click rates or they'll use scripts to determine stuff from your ISP which you can't disguise. These will be extremely hard to cover up.
Rupert Murdock's Media empire spied on the text medssages of a dead girl's cell phone, just to post sensationalist story in one of his gossip rags. At no time di he publicly denigrate such heinous behavior, or even to a degree that he spews hate on Google.
No action taken by Google or any other Internet entity have or can reach such a despicable low as that.
Kudos to Rupert Murdock for being the scumbag that he is. If Comcast or Mr. Murdock are allowed to purchase Time Warner Cable (TWC) - which already scores a "fail" (F-) on quality of Service meter, then TWC customers who do not vigorously and insistently fight these draconian behemoths potential purchasers deserve the idiotic treatment they will receive.
Murdock is just a narcissistic pr!ck...
Google & the rest of the big data trolls are equally pr!cks, but throw in a little measure of blood sucking parasites. Everybody loves vampires, right up until they drain you.
Seriously, don't be naïve enough to actually believe the "do no harm" crap from Google - even if by some stretch of the imagination they are actually living it right now; sooner or later they won't and that's why the breadth of the data they have collected and stored is beyond scary. If you don't trust the NSA to collect data, why would you ever trust Google? Or any other big data aggregator? These large business have shareholders and are driven by quarterly results just like any other large business - why would you expect them to behave any better than other corporations over the long run?
"Murdoch and Google have history, with the former accusing the latter of stealing his newspapers' content (yet never putting in place a robots.txt file that would prevent search engines crawling it). "
Well, wouldn't Google indexing his content him pull readers in when they search for something? I'm sure his competitors are more than happy to take the traffic
"Uncle Rupert has also criticised Google as enabling the theft of films by indexing torrent sites."
So, it is the job of Google to do censorship? Doesn't Google just hit an address on 80 and 443 before moving on to the next address? I would assume that there are certain sites that Google is going to check much more often though.
Maybe the film industry should try to give the public what it wants rather than telling them what they will get and like it.
Rupert is worried that peoples privacy is being violated by those nasty people over at Google, "that's our job" he giggled flirtatiously ..
I've been saying this for a while now, and not just about Google. Corporate spying is far more insidious than even the government spying, because, unless your a major stock holder, you have no say in what information corporations collect or how they use it. And even where there is a privacy statement, it usually boils down to " you have no rights so suck it up."
Of course being on the same side of an issue with Rupert Murdoch gave me a real moment of EW! But even a stopped clock is right twice a day (unless it's digital).
I'm rather surprised at how many people reckon Murdock got that one wrong. The NSA just grabs data to look for stuff that can trigger the natural American fear of everyone non-American and most Americans (almost any data). Google grabs data to look for absoultely anythinganyone that that could be sold anywhere (absolutely any data).
Don't ask why I say "natural American feara". It's perfectly natural to believe that everyone wishes you ill when you are insistent on them subordinating their ideals and their wishes to yours.
Using absolutely any data to is nastier than using almost any data. After all, the NSA tries to eliminate data that doesn't indicate a threat - but Google doesnt care whether it indicates a threat ornot.