32 replies to this topic 3 votes

[Asrokhel]

Pledge your support for the free and open Internet:

“A free and open world depends on a free and open Internet. Governments alone, working behind closed doors, should not direct its future. The billions of people around the globe who use the Internet should have a voice.”














http://google.com/takeaction/

[+Phouchg]

Says Google which shamelessly rakes two nines of its billions flooding this very web with ads and mines it for info behind closed doors.

I'd like to propose another thing here - Stop Stupid Drivel. Nothing is free, everything costs and someone pays in the end. From infrastructure to hardware and wiring to electricity to administration, tech support and programmer salaries to funding research of new developments and whatever I'm forgetting at the moment - we, end users, pay for all that, indirectly. Where there's money - there not only is, but must be control. Where there's control, there's abuse of it. All tech companies abuse it to increase shareholder value - that's the long and short of it.

[Asrokhel]

Google means free of censorship and the ability to share things across the Web/Internet freely when they are saying 'free and open'.

[Lord Method Man]

But they're cool with the wholesale harvesting of everyone's information and activity as well as plastering ads in my face everywhere I go with DoubleClick and who knows what else. Screw Google.

I wonder what their real angle is. My guess is they're scared of new legislation mandating that they can't continue ignoring DNT.

[Jason Stillion]

This also affects Microsoft (Bing), Yahoo (ironically also Bing), and every other company that's part of web.

[+Phouchg]

Internets depend on millions of people all over the world to even exist. All parts that together make the thing must comply to local laws. If a country wants to screw people over, no one's going to change it ever. Google is going for their own agenda at best - not caring about anything else than continuing to increase shareholder value by keeping its business model as intact as possible, and political influence at worst, like it doesn't have enough of that already. And it's something that must not be allowed. Though people are gullible, they always need their imaginary freedom fighters and heroes that spit battle cries against the evil system. Unfortunately, amidst all the struggle and casualties no one has ever created a better system than its predecessor, and at the end of the day new freedom fighters have always risen to bring down the very foundation they had helped to build.

[HawkMan]

Asrokhel, on 20 November 2012 - 20:06, said:

Google means free of censorship and the ability to share things across the Web/Internet freely when they are saying 'free and open'.

Eh, no.

[Lord Method Man]

Google doesn't want anyone having control over the internet except for Google. Hence their stance.

[thealexweb]

Lord Method Man, on 20 November 2012 - 20:45, said:

Google doesn't want anyone having control over the internet except for Google. Hence their stance.

Google is a big website, how does it actually control the internet? Answer: it can't

[Dashel]

When google starts auto-competing Carlin's seven words then they can talk. As long as businesses, including Neowin, think censoring speech is a legitimate mechanism to create more polite societies, we all lose.

http://www.nytimes.c...?pagewanted=all

"What is the vehicle for this new prudishness? Dour, one-dimensional algorithms, the mathematical constructs that automatically determine the limits of what is culturally acceptable."

[ichi]

Phouchg, on 20 November 2012 - 20:29, said:

Internets depend on millions of people all over the world to even exist. All parts that together make the thing must comply to local laws. If a country wants to screw people over, no one's going to change it ever. Google is going for their own agenda at best - not caring about anything else than continuing to increase shareholder value by keeping its business model as intact as possible, and political influence at worst, like it doesn't have enough of that already. And it's something that must not be allowed. Though people are gullible, they always need their imaginary freedom fighters and heroes that spit battle cries against the evil system. Unfortunately, amidst all the struggle and casualties no one has ever created a better system than its predecessor, and at the end of the day new freedom fighters have always risen to bring down the very foundation they had helped to build.

Google is interested in a free (as in freedom) and open web because that's the best playground for their business. If governments or any other third party start setting up barriers for users, that'll make it harder for Google to collect info and profit from targeted advertisement.

It just so happens that Google's interests regarding the freedom and openness of the web align with ours even if for a completely different set of reasons.

A behemoth that lobbies for interests that align with yours can come handy, far better that having just a bunch of companies trying to turn the web into a tiered proprietary mess.

[Growled]

Nothing is totally free. You may not see it but there is a catch in there somewhere.

[ArialBlue]

Wolf in Sheep's clothing says what?

[HawkMan]

ichi, on 20 November 2012 - 23:11, said:

Google is interested in a free (as in freedom) and open web because that's the best playground for their business. If governments or any other third party start setting up barriers for users, that'll make it harder for Google to collect info and profit from targeted advertisement.

No, Google doesn't care if the internet is free. They care about market access so they can make money on the users, if the users are free to do whatever they want on said internet is something google don't give a flying f about, outside of looking good on press conferences.

That's why Google will stand on their press conferences in the west proclaiming support for a free internet, while handing all your info to the government on request, and when China and IRan asks them to censor their search results and help them censor the internet, they go "sure, as long as we get to serve ads and collect info about the users, we'll even share everything we learn about them with you".

[+M2Ys4U]

Growled, on 21 November 2012 - 00:35, said:

Nothing is totally free. You may not see it but there is a catch in there somewhere.

Free as in free speech (libre), not free as in free beer (gratis)