[lbo-talk] Texas Chainsaw Match: Big Brother vs Google

Willy Greenfields filthydirtyunwashed at yahoo.com
Sat Jan 21 21:08:34 PST 2006


Bill, I gotta say that I don't like this formulation. If my understanding is correct, b/c of cookies and pattern matching algorithms, etc, GOOG knows who you are and what you look at online. To date, this has been for ostensible commercial reasons (predictive ads of what you may want to buy, w/ GOOG getting a click-based ad fee).

I of course don't want the US gov having access to this sort of data. But why should I accept GOOG having it to begin w/? Even if it weren't a _gigantic_ corp (before its sell-off last week, it enjoyed a market cap not far off Berkshire Hathaway's), why would I want _any_ corp or _anybody_ to have this info. Why post Enron etc is a corporate actor accorded benefit of the doubt over an elected government (even the Bushites)? Why should I accept a "non-evil" actor (GOOG goes to great pains to say that whatever they are, they're not "evil"). I'd go barefoot if Adidas put a GPS in their sneakers.

I'm hoping this one is less a Texas Death Match and more a Mexican Standoff. Let these two groups of fucking assholes spend themselves into insolvency litigating, GOOG shares and Bush credibility sliding downward all the way. Their loss, I pray, will be our gain.

__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list