Posted on 08/10/2005 1:57:35 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
Google chief executive Eric Schmidt believes passionately in his company's mission, which he describes as corralling all human information, then making it universally accessible.
``When we talk about organizing all the world's information, we mean all. And we mean all people. And we mean universally accessible,'' he declared at a daylong Google presentation to journalists on May 19.
But Schmidt apparently has his own definition of ``all'': Everyone in the world except me.
In what is shaping up as an emerging public-relations black eye for the Mountain View-based Internet search company, Google has said it will stop talking to all reporters from the CNet News.com service for a full year because one News .com reporter disclosed personal information about Schmidt gleaned from a 30-minute search on -- you guessed it -- Google.
The company is also refusing to talk about why it did this, ducking what could be an important public debate on how the incredible power of Internet search can compromise privacy.
If anything, Schmidt seemed to invite scrutiny during the May 19 session, saying he appreciates journalists who are ``appropriately skeptical about things that we're doing.''
When one journalist asked about several privacy concerns involving Google, including free access to aerial photographs from a service called Keyhole that can show details of individual homes, Schmidt replied:
``So Google has essentially taken information in a number of these cases, Keyhole being one, where that information was previously publicly available, but not broadly available. So one way to think about this is (that) information is now easier to get to than it was before by virtue of Google's activities. So we understand the question and the concern.''
But, he added, Google has policies in place that set ``a proper balance between general access to information and the specific rights of individuals, which we're concerned about a lot.''
Schmidt, at least, seems a lot concerned with his own privacy.
News.com reporter Elinor Mills touched off the Google backlash with a long July 14 story on privacy concerns raised by the company's ever-expanding list of search features.
Mills started by reporting several details of Schmidt's background gleaned from Google, such as the value of his Google stock -- $1.5 billion last year -- and the fact that he hosted a fundraiser for presidential candidate Al Gore in his Atherton home five years ago.
This is the kind of clever touch that brings a story to life, and is something I'd be inclined to do myself.
Mills may have gone too far, however, by giving one link that pointed readers to a database of political contribution reports that included Schmidt's exact home address.
High-profile executives in Silicon Valley have good reason to be concerned for their personal safety. Adobe Systems co-founder Charles M. Geschke was kidnapped for ransom in 1992, and only released after four days in captivity.
But even if Mills stepped slightly over the line, Google is using a baseball bat to swat a fly on its own forehead.
Last week, San Francisco-based News.com started putting a short note at the end of its stories on Google: ``Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News.com reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues raised by a previous story.''
News.com Editor-in-chief Jai Singh said the ban comes from the July 14 story's use of personal information on Schmidt.
``We didn't go out and break into any databases to get this information,'' Singh told the Associated Press. ``This is all publicly available information.''
On Tuesday, Google spokesman David Krane told me the company has no comment on the situation.
That's puzzling for a company that boasts of having a corporate policy of ``do no evil.'' On the corporate mission page of its Web site, Google further says: ``By always placing the interests of the user first, Google has built the most loyal audience on the web.''
Google users don't live in a vacuum. They are also readers of News.com and the Mercury News and many other media outlets that might now feel a sudden chill in reporting aggressively on what Google is doing. The interests of users, in other words, are not being served by cutting off News .com and then refusing to discuss the matter.
I greatly admire what Google has accomplished in creating a Web site I use for hours every day and in building a company that espouses virtuous behavior. But it's easy to be on the side of the angels when everything is going smoothly.
Google needs to move quickly to keep its reputation spotless. The company should either drop the News.com embargo, or explain to the world why it's taken such a ugly step.
LOL! Liberal hypocrisy knows no bounds!
I have quit using Google for anything.
I'm not totally off them, but I have started using alternatives, like Webcrawler. Mainly because I've noticed patterns in the search results that lead me to believe that google has too much influence over access to the whole spectrum of information.
If you're interested in the keyhole they mentioned, drop by this site and have a look at what can be seen . . . http://earth.google.com/
Yikes. First I have to boycott Starbucks and now Google. I'm not sure life is going to be worth living.
dogpile.com
So this reporter has essentially taken information in a number of these cases, Google being one, where that information was previously publicly available, but not broadly available. So one way to think about this is (that) information is now easier to get to than it was before by virtue of the reporter's activities.
IOW... it's okay if Google does it to YOU, but not vice-versa.
None are as good but look at the front page news links, they are consistently all leftist. Queries are leftist. Those who run the show are leftist. Ads are leftist. The entire damn thing is leftist. Anyone desiring the latest leftist updates will be intoxicated there
Is Yahoo any better?
They've been playing dirty for quite awhile. I changed to clusty.com back when for just this kind of reason.
It occurs to me that when those of us who pray began praying that the Lord God would take His axe to the root of the duplicity in media we didn't envision that including search engines of the powerful Google type. Now that needs to be included because it controls information and flow of information.
Big deal. Any company has the right to decide what reporters it talks to, no matter the reason, even if the PR director just doesn't like the organization.
I tried it- Wow. I was the first one in my office to use google way back when. I think I will continue the tradition by using this one.
will check it out.
Yeah, I've just about had it with Google. Previewseek has possibilities.
I LIKE it! Very nice features, like the previews and the subcategories to the left. I'll be using it regularly.
Yes, those are nice features. I've used it some for about a week; occasionally the preview thumbnails are a bit slow to load, but perhaps that will get taken care of later.
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