“Eric Schmidt’s comments at the Abu Dhabi ‘media summit’ certainly sound especially cocky even considering the Google CEO’s past haughty pronouncements,” Tate reports. “Schmidt, Fortune reports, implied Google is more trustworthy than any government on the planet after he was was asked asked about the company’s worrisome stash of private data on its users, Schmidt: ‘All this information that you have about us… Does that scare everyone in this room?’ The questioner asked… ‘Would you prefer someone else?’ Schmidt shot back… ‘Is there a government that you would prefer to be in charge of this?'”
Tate reports, “Schmidt also said Google has been known to curb its own creepy impulses: ‘There are many, many things that Google could do, that we chose not to do… One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that.'”
Tate writes, “Fortune wonders if Schmidt’s comments are a sign of ‘a dangerous culture of self-righteousness.’ They are.”
“But the CEO’s remarks are just the latest in a series of prominent self-righteous statements from Googlers,” Tate reports. “There have been plenty of similar cases just in the past couple of months alone. It’s worth cataloging them, given Google’s deep relationship with its millions of users, and given that the Mountain View internet company doesn’t seem to be getting any more humble.”
Six delusions of Google’s arrogant leaders:
1: It’s not about the money
2: Google’s wealth means Google “gets it”
3: Google must sacrifice user privacy to grow
4: Users are hungry for Google synergy
5: Google is a worker’s utopia
6: The outraged users are confused
Full article here.
Eric Schmidt couldn’t be trusted on Apple’s Board.
Google can’t be trusted.
A man who steals confidence and then ideas from Apple wants to be trusted by everyone …
He got balls of steel, that’s for sure – if anyone trusts him they have to be mad.
Here is another recent comment. ” Apple’s closed system for the iPhone is terrible, and I’m going to do all I can to destroy it.
Talk about hubris…
The only entity that says repeatedly “Don’t be evil” or “we’re not evil” is the same one that says “trust me” over and over again… Google IS no different than Microsoft – just way better managed. Make no mistakes Google IS Evil!
“One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that.”
So had it just been immoral rather than illegal, they would have continued. My guess is some one there kept this going in a skunk works project.
And if it is not about the money, then why don’t you donate 50% to help pay down the National Dept, or build a foundation to but the Gates foundation to shame.
“we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that.”
So what, you want medals for it? Only this morning I decided not to kick my Granny, so I want medals too.
I keep telling people to stop using Google’s services so much, but most people don’t listen…
Well, compared to vast majority of companies operating in the US, Google really IS workers’ utopia. Otherwise, quite right.
I’ve heard terms like the ‘Church of Apple’ before but hell, this is like the Google Jihad…..
Fascinating stuff. Humans are so susceptible to their own BS.
The only reason you recognise the arrogance and hubris in Google is you possess it yourself.
Take the mote out of thine own eye MDN.
Power corrupts. Absolute power…
@George Walter
MDN didn’t write the article.
If they wanted to run a virtuous company that did things differently than others they killed any ideas of doing that the moment they went public.
Shareholders ultimately dont give a crap about virtue, they just want profit.
Google has become more evil and less trustworthy then Microsoft and all the Governments of the world combined. This should be a wake-up call to all internet users and the massive threat Google is to their privacy and security.
I’m convinced that an anti-Google condom is now need to protect from Google’s peeping tom spying. So, I’m going to create a freeware program that plugs-in to Safari and when ever a Google server request anything from the browser it sends it garbage data. I think I’ll call it the “Anti-Google Spy Condom”.
Protect yourself from the internet’s biggest Peeping Tom Google. Governments around the world need to wake-up to the Google threat to it’s citizens privacy. Write your Government representative and talk them that you believe Google is collecting information about you that is inappropriate for a private company to collect and use and you want them to investigate and force Google to be transparent on all information collected and also you what them to force Google to purge all information you the user deems is inappropriate for Google to have and to collect. In fact you believe it would be in the best interest of the Public if the Government forced a Break up of Google. Then force the remaining parts to be and remain transparent on all information collected and every thing it does with the collected data.
Stop Google now as they are a danger to personal privacy, public safety, and international security.
People get upset at Apple being a “control freak”, but their “control” is centered around their own products.
Apple’s not reading your mail.
Google is (and is damn proud of it).
It’s illegal to “predict” stock market behavior? Did I miss something or is my broker breaking the law?
Google is a private company, while government sit on top of a bunch of taxpayer moneys which they take at the point of a gun. (or whatever happens when you do tax evasion)
Apple fanboys might wish the destruction of any company that gives them hard competition, like base hooligans wish death or worse on other team fans / athlets, but I would damn well say that Google is more trustworthy than any government.
And has given more back as well.
“6: The outraged users are confused”
Replace “Users” with “Taxpayers” or “Citizens” and you have R.P.O. (Reid, Pelosi, Obama).
@ CitizenX, I scratched my head on that one too.
If they’re just looking at search patterns, web traffic and news content, that can’t be illegal. Big investment firms have tried to do it for years (but haven’t had the same access to large volumes of real-time data).
The only thing I could think of was they were considering reading people’s gmail and/or their private documents in Google Docs. Now I imagine that would be illegal. It would amount to insider trading.
Protect yourself from the internet’s biggest Peeping Tom Google.
Which is why I use Firefox, with its antitracking extensions, anti-Google extensions and user.js/about:config controls to stop prefetching and its cookie-planting and pings.
If Apple was serious about any Google battle, Safari would have the same controls.
I don’t think many people realize how all-pervasive Google is on the web. I have a hack of the etc/hosts file which blocks nearly all outside requests from ad servers, including Google. For instance, on this page Safari is indicating “40 errors,” meaning outside requests that couldn’t be loaded in. The Activity window shows most are ad servers and other spies, but 9 are from Google, mostly google-analytics. I see this on every web page that has any ads on them. They can monitor nearly all the activity on the web with this!
And yes, Google’s arrogance is getting more blatant. I’m still mystified by the people who zealously defend Google, and have totally fallen for their “it’s not about the money” schtick. Google is a company – the more they try to pretend they’re just trying to do good stuff for everyone, without any thought for profitability, the more convinced I am that they’ve got ulterior motives.
@ George Walter – Might wanna take that big ol’ plank out of your eye first, before you go around trying to remove specks from the eyes of others. Know thy source material.
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@Demon, my hack blocks most of that stuff too, but sometimes causes problems. Clicking on any link below the comments in the “More On This Topic” area produces more than 40 errors, 10 of them from Google, and won’t load in at all. Same thing happens with paid links in a Google search. They’re just not going to let you see anything if they can’t be in the middle of it.