Bruce Napier <[email protected]> wrote: >Am I alone in finding the new Google Latitude service a bit creepy? >If you sign up to it, Google will know where you are all the time, as >well as all the other stuff they hold about your habits.
Well, I'm not sure I would say "creepy", but I definitely do say "I'm not signing up"! >It's sold as a service for keeping track of your friends, but Google >doesn't exactly have a good rep for standing up to governments, does it? Actually, it does. I assume you are referring to the situation Google ran into in China? But in that instance, the Chinese government said to Google (in effect) "You either block out links to sites we don't like, or we will block you out of our country altogether". Google protested hard, but in the hand decided that, as the number of proscribed sites is relatively small, the net increase of freedom for the Chinese would be much larger with the former than with the latter. I think Google was right. Also, Google searches in China actually often reveal other ways for Chinese to find ways to the content of the proscribed sites, so the censorship is in fact rather less than it appears at first blush. A company as large and pervasive as Google is bound to attract suspicion. However, I believe it does try quite hard to be ethical. More than most, probably. Steve Haywood <[email protected]> wrote: >I don't think you're being paranoid at all. I won't go into them all, but >there are a whole raft of government-inspired initiatives which libertarian >groups have complained of as being potentially intrusive of personal >liberty. Indeed. Hence the famous quote about "ceaseless vigilance". And as I said, in my case "No thanks". >The last thing we want now is for private companies to go >blundering ahead with developments in new technology without any concern as >to their potentially repressive use. I think I would *much* rather have a business doing this than a government! I think the former will be very much more likely to be responsive to its, er, constituents than the latter. Do you watch CSI Miami on TV? The lovely Ms Procter frequently checks the location of people (by no means all of whom are bad guys) using the GPS feature on their mobiles. Warrant? What warrant? However, I think "blundering" is a little unkind here. And I suspect Google has given quite a lot of concern to the issue. "Phil Rushton" <[email protected]> wrote: >I find it amazing that the majority of UK citizens are against the >introduction of identity cards, but will quite happily sign up for something >like this. I hope/wish your premise were true. However ISTM that the last figure I heard for it was about 60% in favour. But dropping. Hooray! Although I agree with your point about the apparent disinterest of most Brits in the ongoing erosion of their liberties, and I find it very worrying. Adrian . Adrian Stott 07956-299966
