Subpoena Resistance Hurts Google Stock 407
imrec writes "Google stock sees a record 8% decline shortly after news concerning the government's request for Google's search logs broke earlier this week." From the article: "'There are potentially concerns that Google could be in the cross-hairs of the Justice Department,' Kessler said. 'Investors are worried about interest rates and inflation and they felt technology stocks like Google, Apple, Yahoo and others were able to withstand these kinds of pressure. But now that ability is in doubt,'"
Two Words . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you taken a look at what Googles PE multiple still is, and what that means?
With apologies:
Those who don't understand the DotCom bubble are condemned to repeat it. Badly.
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:4, Informative)
> their money in anyway, because they thought it would go up for a while longer, and they wanted to gamble on getting
> out on time.
And this is exactly why Google is dipping now. Nothing at all to do with the Justice Dept. The moron writing that Reuters story was looking for something to sex up the story a bit and Slashdot bit hook line and sinker. Bottom line, the stock markets in general did a major dip and Google felt it harder than most because it is such a spectulative stock. It's current market value is so imaginary it recalls the heady days of 2000 right before the bubble burst. Since most investors remember losing an assload when that bubble burst they are a little more jittery this time. But not enough since they are still in Google so heavily.
Look, I like Google. If I could have gotten in on the IPO I'd have been there. But by the time mortals were allowed in the price was insane and heading higher. It is priced like it was already as big as Microsoft and poised to grow. Sorry, Microsoft isn't even growing anymore. No company the size of Micorosoft can, not even Google.
> Most bottomed out at about 1/10th their peak value. Most have not gone back up - most have been absolutely flat
> under George W Bush's "growth and jobs inspiring tax cuts" - for 5 years.
Bush has little to do with it. At 1/10 their peak value they are pretty much priced fairly, which is why they aren't going back up all that fast, in fact they now rise based on expected growth. Imagine that. Sorry, Amazon's couple of warehouses just doesn't represent a greater capitalization than Boeing. And even if Amazon sold every book printed neither their revenue stream or likely profits would approach Boeing's. The market finally came to its senses and revalued those Internet stocks that had truly silly valuations.
But since you bring up Shrubbie, I'll just note that normally when the stock market tanks like it did in 2000 the economy does a much bigger nosedive than it did this time, even without an added blow to investor and consumer confidence such as 9/11. So I'd say the prompt application of tax cuts probably saved the day.
> I'm expecting huge drops. Like most Americans who are making payments on a single home, I'll be fucked. 11% drop
> in November. 9% drop in December.
Again, if you bought in one of the insane housing markets (So Cal for instance) you are probably going to get what you deserve. After all, you KNEW it was insane and you bought anyway. But then on the other hand, if you actually plan to live there it really doesn't matter what the paper value is now does it? Heck, it will at least lower your property taxes. And in ten or so years when you are ready to sell the value will probably have recovered a bit.
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, unless they recently changed it - California property taxes are based on the purchase price of the house.
The bubble could pop, a $1.1M stand alone house (1100 sf, 3/2/1) could drop in real value to say
The "some shmuck" theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Think about it for a moment. After the IPO for a stock is over, what value does a share of their stock really have if they don't offer a dividend? If the company is worth $200,000 or $200,000,000,000, the stock's value is completely arbitrary based on the number of shmucks lined up to buy it.
Good example: VA Linux. At IPO it went from $30 to $300. Why? There were a lot of shmucks who wanted it. They wanted it because they thought some other shmuck would but it at $400. As it turns out there were no such shmucks.
The housing market is the same way right now, though a bit different because everybody has to live somewhere. So there's a definite value in property other than the "some shmuck" value. Having said that, you know there's a lot of people buying $500,000 postage stamps on the assumption that some shmuck will pay them $600,000 or a million.
Of course, eventually, you run out of shmucks. You can tell when a crash is coming because everybody you talk to talks about whatever the hot commodity is at the moment. Suddenly everybody's a dot com developer, or they're a realtor making scads of money. They talk about how housing prices always go up 5-10% year (even though incomes have dropped relative to inflation for the past few years). They say crazy things about how we've eliminated the business cycle and we'll have steady low inflation growth until the infinite future. Then he shmucks run out and it all comes crashing down.
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:2)
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:3, Informative)
I have a relative who works at Merrill Lynch telling people what stocks to buy. I asked him whether his most successful co-workers made their money following their own advice, or on commissions. The answer was "commissions."
In other words, I agree slashdot investments tips are probably worthless, but so are everyone else's, unless of course they're insiders.
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:2)
I think if Google stay hard on their edge on this one, I think this will become a big case, widely looked upon by the tech industry. Another MS vs DOJ case. In some cases, it's quite worth it to buy stock when it's tanking.
I bought MCI Worldcom stock about 3 hours before they were delisted, one of the best stock moves I have ever made.
Google has widely been known as they cause for the "brain drain" in Silicon Valley ri
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:2)
Also, did you jump onto the Enron bandwagon before they went under?
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Two Words . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Two other words.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget the stock price, do you approve of the government looking into your searching habits? I dont.
Remember when it was said ' they would never do that' just a couple of years ago when echelon was all the talk? Welp, welcome to 'never'.
Google should stick to "not being evil" (Score:5, Interesting)
Ahhh, now we'll really see whether they can really live up their "Don't be evil" policy! Does Google prefer stock price over ethics? While my instinct tells me the answer is firmly "no" I think we are all interested in the result.
I think Google did the right thing. In the western democracies we all have strict rules governing the powers of the various investigative authorities. There are very good reasons for this. The Police and Justice Department have incredible powers granted to them by the state. However, the same power that allows them to catch criminals can also be used for less noble purposes.
In any organisation of considerable size there is always a rogue element. An element that is deceitful, unethical and motivated by influences orthogonal to the goals of the institution. Sometimes these are fairly benign: David Blunket trying to get a quick visa so he and his bit on the side have a nanny to look after their child. Sometimes these can be very malicious: Robbers breaking in to the Democrat headquarters and planting bugs so Nixon could spy on their election campaign. (I'm British so they may be inaccuracies in this account)
The law is there not only to protect us from criminals but to protect us from the people who catch them too. In many ways, the protection from the people who catch criminals is vastly more important than protection from criminals. What criminal can get state sanctioned approval to search your home? Impound your possessions? Wrongfully impression you?
All over the western world, governments are granting their Police more and more powers in the name of combating terrorism. The chance of being killed by a terrorist is approximately zero. For comparison, in Britain 0.03% of us will die[1] in ALL possible mishaps this year. That takes account of murder, car crashes, being eaten by ferocious llamas and so on and so forth.
I would therefore venture that the threat posed by increasing Police power is vastly greater than the threat of terrorism. In Britain, we saw this illustrated for us nicely when an octogenarian, life-time member of the Labour party was escorted from the annual conference and arrested under anti-terrorism legislation. Here was a man saying that war in Iraq was unjust and he gets arrested under anti-terrorism legislation. This war on terror is becoming a war, conducted by ourselves, against ourselves to remove the democratic values we cherish so dearly. Shakespeare himself could not write such a dark tragedy.
Getting back to point. Just because the Justice Department says Google should jump it does not mean Google should meekly reply: "How High, Officer?". Just because the government asks you to do something does not mean that they have the proper authority to ask for it. Let them prove in a court of law that they have the proper authority to make such a claim. If they're right, they'll win and Google will have to capitulate. If they're wrong, then a precedent is set and the complicated system of checks and balances has once again protected liberty.
Simon
[1] - The Independent, Yesterday, in the Editorial section. Feel free to correct this figure if it is incorrect.Re:Google should stick to "not being evil" (Score:2)
Google lost me with that when they announced plans to release DRM'd content. Some people might claim DRM isn't evil, but I simply disagree (although I do make one exception, but don't plan to make anymore in the forseeable future, not even for Google). Good to see they aren't evil all the time, although they are more then willing to help the government keep down it's citizens (see China).
For christs sake (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Google did the right thing.
Google is a marketing and advertising company. First, foremost, and mostly only. The don't be evil thing is superb marketing that gained them a groundswell of grassroots support, good for them. But their stock in trade, the tins of beans on their shelves, is consumer data. This information is their livelihood. the only reason they are resisted government requests for this information is because they don't want to give up their hard won and very valuable data. Plain and simple. Once it gets into govt hands, who knows where else it will go?
This is not ethics or morals, its like asking walmart to give up their entire inventory of shop-brand cola forever, while still buying it in. That's google's position, so spare us the hero stuff. (Shakespeare?!?) I fully expect this to be modded into the topsoil by the cleansed of brain, but honestly, this is slashdot. Three strangers disagree with you and you're meant to feel bad?
Re:For christs sake (Score:2)
1. Give out the data and make share holders happy
2. Withhold the data and make customers happy.
We know now that 2 will lead to unhappy share holders.
If google select 1 then the customers will go away and the shareholders will be unhappy. So 1 leads to unhappy share holders.
Both actions lead to unhappy shareholders. So the better option is option 2 - since they at least dont make their customers unhappy.
Re:For christs sake (Score:2)
* Ever try to change Safari's search engine association? How many people ou
Re:For christs sake (Score:2)
Re:For christs sake (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:For christs sake (Score:5, Funny)
You said you wanted an ad hominem, right?
Re:For christs sake (Score:2)
But they didn't.
Re:For christs sake (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking as a grassroot, I thought the thing they did was to offer efficient, reliable and honest search results with a minimum of annoyances for the user. I'd been using Google for years before I heard about the "don't be evil" thing.
And, you know, long as I find Google's search results useful, I expect I'll carry on using them.
Re:For christs sake (Score:3, Insightful)
About as often as I encounter the proposition that Google are evil because of all the things they could potentially do someday in the future.
Perhaps the most interesting thing is fact that the debate is so polarised.
Evil or not, thats my take on what they are currently doing.
It's a reasona
Re:For christs sake (Score:2)
Except that in this case, google would still have their data of course. They may lose some of their competitive advantage, but they wouldn't just be throwing money into a hole.
Drawing analogies between data and physical goods is bound to fail; they simply are not the same.
I disagree (Score:2)
I think providing good results in a clean interface was absolutely key to Google's success, but I also think their technique is not earth-shattering and has alread
Re:For christs sake (Score:2)
You're right, they market themselves well... but free pizza to the computer science students at my university, around midnight during cram times, and at discussion group meetings attended mainly
Re:Google should stick to "not being evil" (Score:2)
I was thinking the same thing, until someone pointed out that Google has been keeping tabs on searching activity for individual users for quite some time now. Think you've been doing searches without them keeping a history of what you've been searching and invading your privacy? Nope.
Re:Google should stick to "not being evil" (Score:5, Interesting)
There is HUGE difference between the Government and the Law.
Law is NOT made by Justice Department.
Google is right in standing up the Republican Justice Dept and saying: "Here's my middle finger. You can lick it or you can screw yourselves with it."
Obviously, the request was made by justice dept. not for fighting terrorists, but just to "help" other campaign corporates like MSFT to learn Google secrets.
This government is for criminals, by criminals (DeLay, Jack Abr.., etc). and for the criminals.
Since when do we start listening to criminals and reveal our business secrets to them.
Just TWO more years Google. Hold On !!!
Re:Google should stick to "not being evil" (Score:2)
Now I am neutral on the whole "porn on the internet" industry and I see both sides, I personally see it as an abuse of power by the current administration for the purposes of campaigning, essentially to try to get re-elected, and I think that's a complete and utter bullshit reason to get the larger aggregate of information that they would be getting back.
T
Re:Google should stick to "not being evil" (Score:3, Insightful)
We have't gone to a three year presidential term. The President was innagurated for a second term on 1/2005. He won't leave office until 1/2009. He has three more years in office.
Re:Google should stick to "not being evil" (Score:2)
The fact that the situation exists is your answer. Corporations do not go into these things without thinking them through.
Saying NO (Score:2)
What they are not thinking about is the ramifications later of pissing off the man. The government has a long memory. ( espcially since once you elect someone they tend to stay for life..
Easy Fix (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Easy Fix (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember, this isn't just a fact finding mission for the gov. They want "evidence" to support a restrictive law. They want the raw data so that *they* (not Google) can rake through it and find any statistic that might support their position. If such data doesn't exist, then they just won't use any of the
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nonsense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nonsense. (Score:2)
Don't forget the Dow drop because of GE... (Score:5, Informative)
This is FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
the decline in the Google shareprice because of the DOJ action
is silly.
Re:This is FUD (Score:2, Troll)
"Defy us and we'll plant false stories to punish you." Actually, this is common practice with the current administration.
Re:This is FUD (Score:2, Informative)
Google will ultimately have to bow to shareholders (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Google will ultimately have to bow to sharehold (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone got data on this in support/against?
Re:Google will ultimately have to bow to sharehold (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Google will ultimately have to bow to sharehold (Score:2)
Re:Google will ultimately have to bow to sharehold (Score:2)
% Held by Insiders4: 35.11% % Held by Institutions4: 37.90% So... you're wrong.
Not really. Because the insiders hold class B shares, while outsiders have class A shares. Each class B share has 10 votes, each class A share has only one. So the insiders own ~30% of the company, but control ~80% of the votes. It looks to me like Larry Page and Sergey Brin can outvote all the rest of the stockholders combined.
Google stock down (Score:5, Informative)
So let me get this straight . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be retarded (Score:5, Informative)
The whole market got slammed yesterday. Google is way out there in terms of valuation and 8% isn't that much considering.
The "Justice" Dept. didn't just go after Google records, they asked all the major search engines. Google just had the nads to stand up and say no.
That's not going to cause their stock to go down, being over-bought causes a sell off, especially when the rest of the market is taking a header. Google could be selling toxic waste and as long as their earnings stayed up the market would still buy their stock. This is nothing more than another example of an over-reaching administration trying to gather statistics to support the conclusion they started with.
I can't wait 'till November.
Re:Don't be retarded (Score:2)
I'm glad I use google as my primary search engine (although being an Australian the privacy issue would be fairly minimal, I'm happy to support a company (even if they do occassionally do evil) that will protect American's privacy).
Re:Don't be retarded (Score:4, Informative)
So did AOL, apparently. AOL's response was something along the lines of "Here are our already publically-available usage stats. Enjoy." In other words, AOL also told the government to pound sand. At least, that's what I heard/saw on News Hour last night...
Re:November 2006 (Score:2)
You're trolling, but this is too funny.
Atheists for Bush 2006
You mean Moron Atheists for Bush 2006. Did you forget this [usconstitution.net]?
It has very little to do with that ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Patriot Search (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks, your search has been recorded and will be shared with the governments of the world!
The market tanked, too. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The market tanked, too. (Score:2)
The fact that the whole market took the biggest fall since 2003 and tech stocks led the way couldn't have anything to do with Google's problem, it has to be Bush. Standard
Give Me a Break... (Score:5, Informative)
Combine that with the Nikkei's drop and higher oil prices, you can see why. Let's not forget people's knee jerk reaction. Also, some people got it on Google not because they believe in its financials or ideas but because they see the price go up and think that more people will pile on -- other people like themselves. They planned on selling as soon as the price start on a major move down. So perhaps the LiveDoor collapse triggered the move. Seeing this, they all tried to sell and thus magnified the change. This kind of thing is very common. Read "The Devil Takes the Hindmost" for some good examples. The phrase means that stock speculators all know that an overpriced stock will come down eventually but they all plan on selling out and handing it off to the next idiot and hopefully the last idiot is the devil. I'm not saying Google is pure speculation but I'm sure some of its buyers were speculators who only looked at the price and nothing else.
In any case, there are much better explanations or theories for the drop than just a little subpena. Anaylsts are not all geniuses, especially the ones that speak to the news media. I mean, if I was a genius and knew what's going on, why would I let other people know? You make money trading because you know or think you know more than the other party.
Re:Give Me a Break... (Score:2)
Seconding the nonsense crowd (Score:2, Interesting)
The whole market is down, and given how high prices Google's stock is, the drop looks all the more extreme.
Now I'm not a financial guy nor do I know a whole lot about investing and the like, but I am wondering why Google has not split this stock long ago? Their current price is doing a lot to keep small inv
Re:Seconding the nonsense crowd (Score:5, Funny)
To stop small investors from owning more than a pittance of Google stock.
Re:Seconding the nonsense crowd (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets say company X has a share price of $100 and a market capitilization (total 'worth') of 1 billion dollars. The current shares outstanding is 10 million ($1,000,000,000 / $100).
They decide to split. Now company X has a share price of $50 and 20 million shares outstanding. However, the market capitilization is unchanged. X is still worth 1 billion dollars overall.
Lets suppose you can currently only afford 1 share of Google stock at $400. Now lets suppose Google where to split 3 times, takin
Re:Seconding the nonsense crowd (Score:2)
Splitting stock has zero effect on the value of a company, and is mostly used as a marketing ploy. An 8% drop is still an 8% drop, whether the price is $100 or $10. It has nothing to do with keeping small investors out, if you can only afford to invest $1,000 in google, it makes no difference whatsoever if this is
Nevertheless... (Score:2)
Google is Horribly Overpriced (Score:5, Informative)
Last I checked it was around 400 a share: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=goog [yahoo.com]
And its market capitalization was around 118 billion dollars. That gives them a P/E ratio of around 88 or 89.
To put this in perspective, their market capitalization, which should be around how much money their business is worth, is about 40% of Microsoft's market cap. And Microsoft is a monopoly sitting on $40 billion of cash. Their P/E is in the low 20's.
Re:Google is Horribly Overpriced (Score:2, Insightful)
Price [26.41] * Shares outstanding [10.64 billion] = Market cap [281 billion]
Latest-year net income = $12.254 billion
Market cap divided by net income = 22.93 = PE ratio
Fill up the logs... (Score:2)
Google will find lots of allies. GodSpeed. (Score:2)
As others have said: buy Google Stock. They need no "Google Defense Fund"....
What madness. What All Star Weenies: MSN, Yahoo, and AOL-- who cave and cower and quiver in fealty to this adminstration. How mindlessly droll and insensitive....
If Google caves to the subpoena, then the last shred of dignity and privacy from the Inte
Nothing to do with lawsuit (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems extraordinarily clumsy of the Justice Department to subpoena this information from the search engines. First and foremost, by what right can the US government require confidential information from a company or person when there is no criminal action contemplated? The fourth amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure, and this seems to
In Other News (Score:2, Insightful)
The bush administration has already lost. (Score:5, Insightful)
The kind of McCarthyesque trend that the bush administration has been promoting tends to fall apart when the people get tired of it and someone very publicly stands up against it.
Gonzales might have gotten away with this in the post 9/11 hysteria.
Now, years and broken promises later people are tired of it all.
Gonzales already lost it for the bush administration by having Google tell him "No".
If he pursues them in court he will just draw more public attention and outrage to the situation, worsening the bush administration image with every public word that is spoken about it.
intentionally misleading interpritation (Score:4, Interesting)
should be:
"Subpoena Hurts Google Stock"
The Resistance is the only reason the stock didn't drop by 20%. Our federal PR machine would like you to believe that the resistance is the problem.
Bad logic. (Score:2, Informative)
This is NOT the way business should be done! (Score:2)
The fact that an irrelavant mass-media news report which has absolutly nothing to do with profitability / performance can have a greater impact on a companies share price than a highly relevant future profitability / performance report shows something is not right.
This is not the way business should be done. Regardless of the possilibities for corruption by media executives (who by the way are getting quite involved in tech companies) share prices (and
Google said this when they went public! (Score:5, Informative)
From the NY Times:
http://www.uazuay.edu.ec/bibliotecas/conectividad
Do what now...? (Score:4, Informative)
"The most obvious reason were the mixed earnings results from Yahoo," Standard & Poor's analyst Scott Kessler said of Tuesday's disappointing quarterly earnings report from Yahoo Inc
It's not like Google was the only stock to take a dive, the market was hurting yesterday. The Tokyo stocks have been hurting for the past few days (or at least hurting badly). Sure, there could be fear about the Justice department scrutiny. It could also just be that everythings hurting right now. Correlation does not necessarily mean causation (to butcher a phrase).
Really overstating things...Google was overvalued (Score:4, Insightful)
This article really overstates things. Google - at over $400 a share - was significantly overvalued on a Discounted Cash Flow(1) basis. At just(!) $300 a share, Google would have to grow at its current rates for 5+ years to be fairly valued.
Let's be clear here, I believe that Google is a great company (and living in Mountain View, am looking forward to their free WiFi for our community) and will continue to influence the business world, our society, and culture for a long time to come. But I also can see when a company is overvalued. At between $100-$200 a share, Google would be fairly valued.
Google has been - and still is - in a bubble. As we say in 2000/2001, a small event can puncture a bubble and cause a stock to drop in value. The DOJs subpoenas may just be the event that puncture's Google's bubble.
Yours,
Jordan
1. Discounted Cash Flow or DCF is the sum of all future cash flows discounted back to the present. It is the best way to get an intrinsic value for a stock.
Ideally, you wish to purchase stocks of companies trading below their intrinsic value. Of course, buying below intrinsic value is as much art as science, but it is possible.
Yahoo is reason for Google drop (Score:4, Informative)
Republicans Creating Bad PR (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Republicans Creating Bad PR (Score:3, Insightful)
Looks fishy to me.
Google Should Do It's Own Investigation (Score:3, Insightful)
One could bitch about privacy but frankly the safety of child is a little more important. Nobody but me read any of the logs. All the PI got was an IP address that ended up verifying his hunch.
I think Google should consider the consequences of NOT using it's resources to save children.
If Google both refuses to offer up it's logs relevant to people searching for child porn AND refuses to do it's own investigations and reporting to the proper authorities then Google is allowing evil where they could easily do something about it.
And that quite simply is pathetic and I wouldn't be surprised if their stock continued to plummet. Instead of "Do No Evil" their motto would degrade to "Be Apathetic To Evil"
Sure the child porn people could do their searches elsewhere but with years of backlogs, it's a little late for a significant number of them. Google no doubt also has a cache of numerous child porn sites which could be used as evidence in trials.
The other fun story I mentioned earlier resulted in a dead end because I traced the alledged criminal to an ISP in the UK which refused to do anything about them. Later their account at the ISP was disabled so the authorities may have knocked some sense into them. In the meantime I had to call people up myself (I bet you can guess what was being stolen) and let them know what happened.
It would be pretty stupid of me to ignore the fact that people's information and SSN numbers were being stolen simply because of a privacy statement. I think people would rather not have their identity stolen when someone with a simple phone call could have prevented it or at least mitigated the damages.
Imagine brick and mortar stores allowing customers to commit criminal activity within their walls and then hiding them behind a privacy statement or defending their blindness to it because of a privacy statement. That is exactly what Google is doing. And it is indefensible. If you try to develop child porn photos at a store you will be reported by the store to the authorities. What makes Google so special? Right now they sound like every other company that doesn't care two cents about its customers.
Yes they have a lot more data making it more difficult to find the things I easily found but that's what the government is for.
Re:The point of insanity (Score:2)
No, that's discredited by the fact that a company reports a profit for the third quarter of 22 cents when Wall Street was expecting 24 cents and therefore the stock price plunges. And if this happens to a Blue Chip stock, the whole market tanks.
What kind of insanity is this, that the government goes out of co
Troll my ass! (Score:2)
What kind of insanity is this, that the government goes out of control, spending billions on a pointless war, spends billions more spying on its own citizens - and Google has its stock price downgraded because it stands up to a basic infringement on the rights of American citizens? Even though this would have n
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The point of insanity (Score:2)
Who is talking about liberty? I'm talking about the "free market" in the Libertarian sense - the idea that economics and property rights should trump all else, and we should rely on the market to do what's best. Often the free market is at odds with human liberty.
it's just that all attempts to centrally plan an economy have been dismal failures, often accompanied by appalling loss of millions of lives.
Who was talking about centrall
Nope. (Score:2)
What kind of insanity is this, that the government goes out of control, spending billions on a pointless war, spends billions more spying on its own citizens - and Google has its stock price downgraded because it stands up to a basic infringement on the rights of American citizens? Even though this would have no
Re:The point of insanity (Score:2)
Why isn't the government a part of the market?
This is exactly what occurred here. Take away the government, and there's no problem in the first place.
Take away the government, then there's no roads to run businesses on in the first place. The government is a major sponsor of business. Businesses benefit more from the government than they are restricte
Re:The point of insanity (Score:2)
In many ways, it is a part of the market. For instance, the government mentioned that builds roads uses resources and hires employees to do work just like any business would. In an REALLY free market, the company that built the roads would charge the public (individuals) for use, whereas the government simply charges everyone, in the form of taxes. Fortunately, the intersection of poeple who drive and people who pay taxes is quite large.
Yes, the government is a
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Retaliation (Score:2)
Get drunk and sleep with a floozy.
Re:One of the most important question is (Score:2)
The number of times I've used the Search History is a lot more than I expected to use it, to be honest. I'm one of those morons that has hundreds of sites bookmarked and they get lost in the crowd. If it wasn't for Google's Search History, I don't know how many times I would lose a site that I found not long before.
Just trying to provid
Re:One of the most important question is (Score:2)
if google was realy not evil... (Score:2)
Because Google is a company. Companies like to make money. Search results are gold to Google. I agree if Google were the perfect virgin company we all would believe they are, they shouldn't keep records - adsense should work on the fly, no profiling. Fact is profiling works, and they make a killing off of it. I believe they aren't bowing to the DOJ to hide the extent of their profiling and because they are afraid of revealing (somehow) trade secrets - wh
Possibly an expert system thing (Score:2)
Re:How is this request an invasion into users priv (Score:5, Insightful)
The request is not perfectly reasonable. The government is asking for lots and lots of data from Google to support their argument for a bill.
I don't know about you, but there is absolutely no possible justification for this. A subpoena [wikipedia.org] is meant to compel testimony in a court proceeding, not to steal data on your citizens for the soul purpose of possibly justifyiny a conclusion you made based off of hyperbole.
Re:Info release hurts Google's business model (Score:2)
Which one? The other three major search engines rolled over without a fight.