Gavin's Blog . com

08 March 2003

Response to Google boycott

I have received numerous replies to my piece on Google. Among them was criticism from Chris Gulker and Steve Jenson. Steve is a software engineer in San Francisco, working on Blogger and other Pyra inventions and now for Google. He has written a lengthy critique of my piece, and has recently been posting here about his arguments against people such as myself. I have replied to him here: (Steves comments are quoted in italics)

Steve,

Thank you for the reply, I was afraid you might not - and I am very glad that you did. I appreciate your contribution greatly.

I will therefore attempt to deal with the issues you raised in a reasonable and logical fashion.

"It's unreasonable to call for a Boycott on a company who's done nothing wrong"

I am boycotting, and calling for a boycott because I believe that until such time as Google decide to open up, that they are subject to some kind of scrutiny given their near monopoly online - that people should stay away.

Why the apparent secrecy? Why not tell their users what they are doing? The privacy statement on Google is not exactly telling us how things are working - what information is kept and how is it used? For instance in Googles own privacy statement:

"Individually identifiable information about you is not willfully disclosed to any third party without first receiving your permission, as explained in this privacy policy ("Privacy Policy")"

Not willfully disclosed, what exactly does that mean? Am I being paranoid? What information is disclosed? How does Google decide these things? Is some accountability to the general public (at least the US public) not a good thing?

"Having a cookie that expires a long time from now and hiring a former NSA employee aren't evidence of any wrongdoing."

Indeed, but I have not decided to stop visiting Google because I have absolute evidence of wrongdoing. I have decided to do so because I simply do not know what Google are doing. And they seem to make no effort to tell me. Why have a cookie that lasts that long? Why not 1 week or 4 weeks? I could live with that... but 35 years? Please tell me why? Why do I feel so uncomfortable with one company having all the information that they do have - because I know that there has never been a company, that seeks to make profit, that would not use the information for 'dubious' purposes. I think it would be foolish of me not to suspect something is amiss, given the sheer dominance of Google. As I would be about any company, anywhere, who has a near monopoly.

"Hiring a guy formerly from the NSA isn't the same as becoming the NSA."

Nor did I make that inference, it is more of an interesting fact than an addition to the argument. Lots of people in the US work for lots of government security departments, but I thought this fact worth mentioning.

"What exactly would be wrong with our government having, say, a google search applicance to keep track of their internal documents? Ooooh, evil..."

Nothing it all, indeed I read that Google appliances are used already in SF local government. It is the ambitions/direction/policies of Google that I think are at issue. Oohh, evil....? I would encourage you to read this, as it is an appeal to ridicule and as such, irrelevant.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-ridicule.html

You now go on to quote a number of logical fallacies that you say were within the argument that I wrote.

"My general complaint about this entry is that it's a call to arms based on logical fallacies"
You cite Dave Winer as an "A-list blogger" who doesn't like Google and therefore it makes sense to not like Google. Your logical fallacy here is http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html"

Please allow me to deal with this issue. And I quote from the site you give. "This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious."

I would contend that Dave Winer is at the very least partially authoritive on the issue, though that is debatable. Otherwise I cited Dave Winer, because, as a matter of fact - he is an A-list blogger. That is a fact.

I was merely using his views on the issue, as an example of another person who is thinking along the same lines as me, and therefore along the same lines as the article. It is common in debates to cite authority, and I believe Dave to be an authority, if you do not agree then fair enough.

"You and others have an oogie feeling therefore Google must be bad. Your logical fallacy here is:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-fear.html"

I am honestly not sure what you mean. Oogie in what sense? If it is an appeal to fear, then please explain how it is unjustified. I am a bit fearful myself, and I think other people might be too after reading the article. But I do not agree that I am trying to scare people outright into not using Google, or that scaring people wins my argument. I am simply saying that I do have suspicions, and I am acting on them. I am encouraging other people to be more suspicious, and should they arrive at the same conclusions based on the evidence, or lack thereof, then they might do the same as me - until such time as the present situation changes.

"You say that Google's doing too many crazy things and therefore must be out to hurt you. Your logical fallacy here is:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/composition.html"

I think it is incorrent to say that I am fallacious here. I listed a number of things that Google do that people may be unaware of. Based on this I have decided not to visit Google anymore, and have said that I would encourage others to do likewise. I think Google is doing a number of crazy things, and suspect that like all companies, Google, while not being out to hurt me, may use its power/influence for dubious purposes - that its users are unaware of.

"You say that Google must fully disclose all of it's practices or else it is engaged in wrongdoing. You have multiple fallacies here:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/questionable-cause.html"

I think that Google must fully disclose its practice's or else there is a likelihood that it may engage in wrong-doing in the future, if it is not already doing so. That is not illogical. I am erring on the side of caution here. Why use a search engine when questions are not fully answered, and where a shroud of mystery hangs over company practice? Why not err on the side of caution and use other engines?

I hope I have answered you to some degree.

Kind regards

Gavin Sheridan

6:36:10 PM

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So many losses before a shot has been fired

Nicholas Kristof writes a thoughtful account of anti-US sentiment around the world at the moment. This is my article of the day. There's an idea: one article of reccommended reading per day! :-)

There are some witty accounts of unkind, to say the least, things that were said lately about the US and its 'moronic' leader. For example:

Then the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper conducted a (hopelessly unscientific) poll on its Web site, asking Canadians whether they agreed that "Americans are behaving like `bastards.' " The returns aren't good: as of yesterday, 51 percent were saying yes.

And then he goes on to mention various polls, such as that carried out here in Ireland.

The U.S. debate on the antipathy toward us has been misleading, I think, in its focus on France. (There's now an American bumper sticker: "Iraq Now, France Next.") It's not just the prickly Gauls who are taking potshots at us � it's even our buddies, like the Canadians and the Irish.

In a survey, The Sunday Independent newspaper of Ireland polled Dublin residents about whom they feared most, Saddam Hussein or George Bush. The result: 39 percent picked Saddam; 60 percent, Mr. Bush. Even in Britain, a poll by The Sunday Times of London found that equal numbers called Saddam and Mr. Bush the "greatest threat to world peace."

I would agree, I think Bush is a greater threat to world peace, and I think that is self-evident. Kristoff then goes on to list the troubles between the allies:

So let's take stock of how our invasion of Iraq is going. The Western alliance is ferociously strained, NATO is paralyzed, America is resented by millions, the United Nations is in crisis, U.S. pals like Tony Blair are being skewered at home, North Korea has exploited our distraction to crank up plutonium production, oil prices have surged, and the world financial markets have sagged.

And the war hasn't even begun yet.

Hahaha, and they a quote from Jay Leno:

Of course, the U.S. may have a solid plan, as Jay Leno said: "President Bush may be the smartest military president in history. First he gets Iraq to destroy all of their own weapons. Then he declares war."

And more on occupation of Iraq...

As one savvy official observed, occupying Baghdad comes at an "unpardonable expense in terms of money, lives lost and ruined regional relationships." Another expert put it this way: "We should not march into Baghdad. . . . To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero . . . assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability."

Who wrote that?

The first comment was made by Colin Powell in a Foreign Affairs essay in 1992; the second is in "A World Transformed," a 1998 book by the first President Bush.

6:33:30 PM

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The UN: Right or wrong?

The first of a weekly series of email threads: this week, historians Andrew Roberts and Ben Pimlott discuss leadership, the Iraq crisis and the UN.

6:05:03 PM

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Nothing to smile about

Merope Mills writes an article about war from the point of view of a young person. Hm. I was sceptical when I learned it would be written from that point of view.

So here we are, us twentysomethings, facing an asymmetrical war that targets people we have nothing against; facing threats from cultures we don't really understand; and dangers we can't protect ourselves from.

We do not deny the possibility of a decent outcome in Iraq. But beyond that? It will deepen the clash of Christian-Muslim cultures and usher in a world where war and retaliation will be cyclical and inevitable facets of our lives.

How long will it be before we can wear intoxicated smiles of permanent peace? Will it be 10, 20 years from now? Perhaps we'll be parents of children who have never known what it's like not to live in fear. Invading Iraq might solve one problem, but it will create myriad others. Problems we will be witnessing for the best part of our lives.

In short Merope, it will be alot longer than 20 years. If humans survive long enough not to kill each other I will be surprised. It would require a sea-change in human psychology, evolution and more. War is a part of humanity, and will be into the future - hundreds if not thousands of years from now.

5:55:08 PM

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Chris Gulker on my boycott of Google

Over at gulker.com Chris has said that he read my article and called it a "good compendium of all the creepy, and worse, unexplained things about Google". Thanks Chris, will add you to my links and read your site more often. And so the meme spreads.

And it also seems that I am in with the league of NRA folk who feel aggrieved by Google because it refused to put advertisements by "Gun and Knife" owners on their site. I hasten to add that I am in no way connected to that particular group.

4:50:42 PM

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The Pentagon's New Map

This site is also making the rounds in the world of Blogs. It tries to explain why the US is going to war, and why the US will keep going to war. It is written by Thomas Barnett from the US Naval War College. Im going to have a decent read from it later, and write a reaction. I have been looking at a related subject, the psychology of war.

4:41:40 PM

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World of Ends

This site by Doc Searls and David Weinberger has made massive inroads into the world of blogs. In a thoughtful essay they both mark out the good and bad of the Internet. Definately worth a look.

The Internet isn't complicated
The Internet isn't a thing. It's an agreement.
The Internet is stupid.
Adding value to the Internet lowers its value.
All the Internet's value grows on its edges.
Money moves to the suburbs.
The end of the world? Nah, the world of ends.The Internet�s three virtues:
   a No one owns it
   b Everyone can use it
   c Anyone can improve it
If the Internet is so simple, why have so many been so boneheaded about it?
Some mistakes we can stop making already

4:35:08 PM

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Ireland defeat the French

Another victory and third for Ireland in the Six Nations. No tries were scored but Ireland showed great resolve in its defence, line outs and scrums. A nail-biting match. Final score, Ireland 15, France 12. All penalties, one drop goal by Geordan Murphy in the first minute.

4:23:57 PM

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