Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Google != trustworthy? Just for the record: I don't trust Google. There, I said it. I think Dan agrees: More Data for Google, Another Privacy Threat for You. . . So you get privacy from everyone but Google, which is busy collecting vast, vast amounts of information about its users and doesn't have what I'd call an ironclad privacy policy. Some privacy from network sniffers is a better idea than going bare. But with such services. you take on risk to avoid risk. [Dan Gillmor's blog] It's not just my cynical nature that makes me look askance at a company with the slogan "Don't be evil." Too much money and too much power just lead to bad, bad things. 8:51:48 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Whither the news? I like newspapers; well, I like the really good ones. I read newspapers, the good ones. I have been reading San Jose Mercury-News for more than twenty years. Before that, I grew up on the Los Angeles Times. I've also given up on some of the local dreck that barely qualifies as fish-wrap. I'm sorry to see the New York Times in trouble; it has some of the best columnists around, but I'm not sure they're worth $50 a year to me. And I hope that dropping 500 employees won't cripple their quality so much that the Times dies. Newspaper Companies' Slow Implosion. . . There will be a serious loss to society if daily newspapers -- or at least the community watchdog function they still fulfill, despite their well-chronicled flaws -- were to disappear or be disrupted while a new business model emerges. I don't know if we need newspapers (though I still read them avidly). We damn well need what newspapers do. [Dan Gillmor's blog] 8:44:12 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

QOTD "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." H. P. Lovecraft. [Quotes of the Day] Amen to that. 8:32:28 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

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