
Eric Schmidt: “We Know Where You Are, We Know What You Like” - icey
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/07/eric-schmidt-ifa/
======
bazbamduck
Eric Schmidt is hard for me to figure out. On the one hand, some of the stuff
he says is eye-popping, in or out of context.

On the other hand, I don't really feel like there's an actual "evilness"
behind the words to match up with the "evil" sound of the words. Someone truly
interested in leveraging the potential evil would hardly going around making
gawk-inducing statements like this. It's almost cartoon villain-ish (and thus
gets headlines).

I've tended to think that it's the "well-meaning but poorly-worded summary of
what the engineers are saying that contains poorly glossed, uncomfortable
truths" explanation that's behind these statements. But that seems a little
weak; shouldn't the CEO be better at that than Schmidt is? (Or if he truly
isn't, why is he still CEO?)

So it occurred to me reading this one, that what if it is that Schmidt is
deliberately "bungling" to try to warn us to caution, in his positive-spin,
pro-company, CEO kind of way? Maybe the "foot in mouth" is precise and
intentional, designed to get press and shake people up on the topic?

To sidestep the (valid but long and out of scope) discussion of "well, why
doesn't he fix the problem?", from a business perspective, he could hardly
full-stop the company on data aggregation. Even if he did, Google isn't alone
in its data aggregation and more companies are jumping in on the game all the
time.

Maybe Schmidt is actually risking the flak to make the point. Maybe he's not
as culturally different from "the Good Google" as many seem to think he is. Or
maybe he really does have an anti-gravity ray with which he will steal the
moon and Miss Penelope Pureheart, bwahaha.

~~~
anigbrowl
_Maybe Schmidt is actually risking the flak to make the point._

That's how I feel: if he makes some hand-waving denial then everyone will
assume he's lying, so it's better to admit what the potential reach could be
openly, and then address what the positives could be. I think their biggest
problem from a service delivery standpoint is the difficulty of working with
Google in a domain-specific mode. For a while they were experimenting with
letting you up/downvote search results, and I was hoping that was going to
converge with some of their set/collection tools so that you could build very
specific filters (more than would be practical using regex) and save them for
later use.

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mquander
I have no idea how this comes off as creepy in an era where hundreds of
millions of people voluntarily broadcast their daily activity and all their
interpersonal relationships on social networks. Shit, Hacker News knows "where
you are" and "what you like" good enough for government work.

~~~
rue
Privacy is not no-one knowing anything about you. Privacy is _being able to
control what others know about you_.

~~~
Andrew_Quentin
Possibly. Maybe, privacy is about being able to control what others you care
about know about you.

I wouldn't for example want Nazi Germany to know that I am Jewish. That of
course is an example, I am neither in Nazi Germany nor Jewish. But I suppose
if I were Jewish, I would not care that the Israeli government knows I am
Jewish.

I do not care what Google knows about me. I do not care either that Google
knows where I am. I too roughly know where most visitors to my website are.
Indeed sometimes I know where they are precisely.

If google wants to offer a service to remind me to buy milk, I might use it. I
do not think that machines are at such a level yet where they can control me
and tell me what to do next. If it reminds me to buy milk I might or might not
go and buy milk. Indeed, possibly having a little google robot to go and buy
my milk would be the science fiction future.

If however google decides all the sudden to tell for example my employer that
I have said that I hate them, that is an invasion of privacy. As it would be
if they told my girlfriend I slept with someone, or if they told my friend I
lied to them. Now that would be the fiction future, or possibly the non
fiction past of 1984.

~~~
prodigal_erik
> I wouldn't for example want Nazi Germany to know that I am Jewish.

Then you can't afford to let the Weimar Republic gather records saying you're
Jewish, not because they're untrustworthy but because collating pre-existing
data (gee, thanks, IBM) is where the Nazis got their lists.

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ay
I found it curious to put these two side by side:

Eric Schmidt: "A near-term future in which you don’t forget anything, because
the computer remembers. You’re never lost."

Evernote.com: "Capture anything. Access anywhere. Find things fast".

Both paint close to the same thing, but with different colors. A great
illustration of how much the good perception matters. And being an underdog
maybe too.

~~~
txxxxd
Keep in mind you're comparing an off-the-cuff quote to a carefully worded
marketing slogan.

~~~
ay
I meant to compare the end result, not just the wording - apologies if I did
not express it clearly.

I think I found a way to put it differently: in one case it is the user that
lets the company collect the data, in the other case it is the company that
lets the user collect the data.

To make the data equivalently useful, I would want to make it the most
complete - so asymptotically I would get the same data set collected in both
cases. But if this all is done with my consent, I would feel more in control
about it - even if "yes to all" is more efficient for me.

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ciupicri
> _While I’m sure Schmidt has the best intentions here, it’s probably time he
> got a PR person or maybe even a friend that can clue him into the fact that
> statements like “We know where you are, we know what you like” can come off
> a little creepy_

So he should get a PR person to rephrase that statement until it sounds good,
but no one understands what it really means? I fail to see how that statement
could be rephrased and TechCrunch doesn't offer any suggestions either.

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yanw
So evidently taking Schmidt's words out of context and putting them into
inflammatory headlines is the new black.

~~~
icey
The statement as reported doesn't appear to have a different meaning than the
statement when read in context; unless I've missed an obvious piece of nuance.

~~~
angstrom
On the flip side, Google gathers data. It's part of its DNA. It's hard not to
sound creepy. It will be officially creepy when he hits all the points of the
Santa Clause song.

~~~
icey
I agree with you about this being part of Google's DNA. But really, they need
to get a mouthpiece that doesn't sound so creepy every time they try to tell
someone what they're up to. They need someone with some sense of spin doing
these interviews.

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rblion
And then God became Google. Self became Facebook. Man became Machine.

We Love Big Google!...wait, or is it 'Like' now?

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alttab
Its quotes like this that make me think that in his mind, Google's real slogan
is "Don't Be Evil... until They Can't Stop You."

Schmidt seems so different than the rest of Google. I feel like there are at
least 2 internal cultures going on over there.

~~~
rblion
hahaha. this should be THE top comment but i sense a google bias on HN. do
you?

~~~
alttab
I don't think Google necessarily has a bias, but only drawing from my own
experience - technology companies have two seemingly (even though they are
_not_ ) independent goals. These are to create a great
product/app/technology/service, and to make money.

Page and Brin are hackers. Schmidt, while decorated with a Technical past, is
a CEO. There are enough articles going around right now that say what a CEO's
job is.

I figure a lot of the hackers here may not have the direct experience hearing
someone talk solely about making money - taking the product and the quality
out of the equation completely. So my comment comes off as abrasive or
inflammatory, even though its most likely the reality.

Schmidt doesn't say "how can we make G-Mail great?" in meetings. He says "how
can we be synonymous with the web, how can we be the absolute end-point for
users and their technology?"

