Not sure about Google

[Undertoad]

Your quarrel with Google is that they are a business and are profitable.

I don't mind my friends seeing what I think is good. I kinda like it. It keeps me in their heads. That has value to me.

I also don't mind people making money. Guess what, it's just a medium of exchange.

What I don't like is speculation about what Google MIGHT do in the future. I would rather criticize based on what they've actually done, instead of what might happen in some sort of dis-utopian future.

My medical information has never been used by insurance companies, and so I wonder what happened to all those arguments for the last 20 years where people told me that was happening or going to happen. That was all just bullshit. It turned out that a law was passed making my medical information incredibly private. And that law (HIPPA) is so widely respected, it prevents even good things from happening to my medical information.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Your problem with Google is that they are a business and have power.

No, I used to admire Google greatly. It competed successfully with MS and
made the internet a wonderful advance worldwide. The various projects
(MAPS, Scholar, ... etc.) were beyond what any company or person had done before.

FaceBook/Twitter/etc were entertainment fluff, but so be it.

What changed was when FB declared ownership of the data people had
been allowed/enticed to load into their database under the company's
implied shell of semi-privacy ( "friending" )

Google changed when Jobs died and a new CEO took the company in a whole new direction.
Google followed suit of FB and declared ownership of everything people had entered or used in their projects.
Now they are declaring they can use your G-mails, MAPS, or any
other information they have to sell "you" to any other company.

My problem with Google is not that they are a business,
but that they have abused the power they gained.