Ex-Google Employee Warns of 'Disturbing' China Plans (bbc.com) 92
A former Google employee has warned of the firm's "disturbing" plans in China, in a letter to US lawmakers. BBC: Jack Poulson, who had been a senior researcher at the company until resigning in August, wrote that he was fearful of Google's ambitions. His letter alleges Google's work on a Chinese product -- codenamed Dragonfly -- would aid Beijing's efforts to censor and monitor its citizens online. Google has said its work in China to date has been "exploratory." Ben Gomes, Google's head of search, told the BBC earlier this week: "Right now all we've done is some exploration, but since we don't have any plans to launch something there's nothing much I can say about it."
A report by news site The Intercept last week alleged Google had demanded employees delete an internal memo that discussed the plans. Google has not commented on the staff row, but said: "We've been investing for many years to help Chinese users, from developing Android, through mobile apps such as Google Translate and Files Go, and our developer tools." It added: "We are not close to launching a search product in China." Mr Poulson's letter details several aspects of Google's work that had been reported in the press but never officially confirmed by the company. It was submitted to the Senate Commerce Committee, which held a hearing on Wednesday in Washington DC. Google's chief privacy officer, Keith Enright, faced questions from Senator Ted Cruz about the company's intentions to launch a new search engine in China. He confirmed the existence of the project.
A report by news site The Intercept last week alleged Google had demanded employees delete an internal memo that discussed the plans. Google has not commented on the staff row, but said: "We've been investing for many years to help Chinese users, from developing Android, through mobile apps such as Google Translate and Files Go, and our developer tools." It added: "We are not close to launching a search product in China." Mr Poulson's letter details several aspects of Google's work that had been reported in the press but never officially confirmed by the company. It was submitted to the Senate Commerce Committee, which held a hearing on Wednesday in Washington DC. Google's chief privacy officer, Keith Enright, faced questions from Senator Ted Cruz about the company's intentions to launch a new search engine in China. He confirmed the existence of the project.
Re: But it's Google we're talking about here (Score:3)
Repeated bad behavior.... (Score:5, Interesting)
- Jack Poulson says "I was compelled to resign my position on August 31, 2018, in the wake of a pattern of unethical and unaccountable decision making from company leadership."
Note he used the word "pattern", so in his opinion Google is making mistake after mistake.
Re: Repeated bad behavior: for YEARS & YEARS (Score:5, Informative)
Googleâ(TM)s illegal âoewi-spyâ program of collecting user data over home wi-fi hubs using its Street View cars has led to investigations and fines for violations of the law in countries around the world. Investigators were outraged when they reviewed the downloaded data and found Google had collected massive amounts of personal emails and data revealing everything from peopleâ(TM)s medical histories to their sexual preference to marital infidelity. (Googleâ(TM)s defense that that it was all okay because they never looked at the illegally collected data is eerily similar to the NSAâ(TM)s).
When challenged on its illegal data collection, the company lied and stonewalled investigators around the world, with the Federal Communications Commission finding the company guilty of âoewillfullyâ ignoring subpoenas to delay investigations into the scandal, fining the company in a 25-page condemnation in April 2012 that concluded âoeGoogleâ(TM)s failure to cooperate with the Bureau was in many or all cases deliberate.â
Both Google and Facebook were charged with violating privacy laws in launching their social media networks and both had to agree to 20-year consent decrees to monitor their privacy policies. But a year after entering its consent decree, the Federal Trade Commission found Google had secretly placed âoecookiesâ to track the online activities of people using the Safari web browser, despite having publicly âoetold these users they would automatically be opted out of such tracking.â Google had deliberately found a vulnerability in Safariâ(TM)s âoedefault cookie-blocking settingâ in order to collect the information for its advertising data collection purposes, while publicly misrepresenting to users that it was not doing so. The company paid a $22.5 million fine for this illegal data collection operation.
FROM:
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3530296
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Googleâ(TM)s illegal âoewi-spyâ
You lost me at "âoewi-spyâ"
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"You lost me at "Ãoewi-spyÃ""
I think that's FInnish....
The Left is being Played (Score:5, Insightful)
Google strokes the Left with platitudes about diversity, equality, and hate speech with one hand and with the other are building an information infrastructure that amounts to a totalitarian control application.
When like minded individuals are elected in the US, they will have a ready platform available to squelch speech and control the distribution of news, all in an unofficial manner and evade constitutional issues.
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Totalitarian control is a good when it's "your guys(female)" in power, especially when you need to stamp out cisgendered bigots.
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Totalitarian or authoritarian is neither left or right. Both Fascist and Communist can be and typically are totalitarian.
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*Newsvertainment Flash!*
Fox News isn't telling you what "the Left" is. They're not even on the left.
It is the same as if I went to hippie bookstore to ask, "Who is the Right? What do they believe in?" It would be a different answer than if I asked people actually on the right.
I know it is hard, but it is also really important.
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Who was even talking about Fox News? Where'd that come from? You just invent a strawman so you could knock it down?
You've got to admit, the liberal left are few and far between these days. People like Johnathan Haidt or Jordan Peterson are banished into the dark web. The authoritarian left is ascendant. One need only look at our universities to see what they desire for the rest of society. Dismantling fundamental rights like being informed of the charges against you or the ability to confront your acc
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Huh, my country is centre left (at the moment), and yet, compared to the USA:
We have less crime
We have a LOT less violence
We have better education
We have equal health outcomes for less than 1/2 the price
We have universal healthcare
We have better welfare
We have greater freedom of speech
We have greater freedom
We have lower corruption
We are more democratic
We are "happier"
We have greater equality
From OUR perspective, the right is as bad as the left.
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I also suspect your country is primarily monocultural, as well as no bigger than a midsize U.S. state. This is almost always the case when someone says they have low crime and low violence.
Violence is almost always less among groups that are effectively related to each other, and are effectively from a single tribe.
As soon as you add multiculturalism to the mix both violence and crime go up, because people are always more ready to impose violence and take stuff from people who aren't like them.
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You forgot:
Re:The Left is being Played (Score:5, Insightful)
But they are fighting hate speech...as it's defined in China.
One day the definition could change here too. That's why you might want to think twice before setting the precedent that banning "hate speech" is a good thing.
Ok, I'll bite (Score:3)
If you don't like Americans doing business with China because the Chinese oppress their people then vote people in that will do sanctions like we do to Venezuela and Iran. As it stands the folks running our country and it's media are overwhelmingly pro corporate. Me? I'm already voting for the likes of Bernie Sanders and similar candidates when I can get them. I v
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Google strokes the Left with platitudes about diversity, equality, and hate speech
Well they are shit at it then. They get a lot of criticism for hate speech on YouTube in particular, and their diversity efforts are not going that well compared to some of their competitors.
Then there is the mass false flagging of left leaning channels and the total impossibility of reaching a human being to sort it out. Where censorship of hate speech is practised it tends to be against the wrong targets.
Most of the people I know on the left of the political spectrum are not at all impressed with Google's
Re:Repeated bad behavior.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would argue that acting unethically is rarely a mistake - Google execs know exactly what they're doing.
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What happens to their market value when the US government takes an interest in them, beyond what they already do? If Google starts selling a software solution to help the Chinese government essentially round up undesirables, how is this much different then IBM helping the Nazis?
Both are companies putting profits before people. Our government might possibly try and stop that.
On the other hand, US government will probably just want access to all the data anyway and just let it happen.
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The problem with Google developing a search engine that is specifically designed to comply with what the chinese government wants, is that it is a very small step for China to then use that as a lever against Google to use that same search engine for the rest of the world - China could for example, insist that Google change search results about the South China Sea to be more friendly to Chinese policy - and then later want that filter applied to the search results for the rest of the world, or they will b
single-bit error (Score:3)
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m->n is two bit flips
good joke otherwise
Be Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
It's but a dry run for when we do this in America.
Re:Be Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not advertised in America, but what makes you think they're not already doing it in America?
Re: Be Evil (Score:2, Insightful)
But you will find nothing Google doesn't like on Google.
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That's what Gamergate was about, if you look into it. And if you look deeper, the government was part of it.
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Have you been on YouTube lately?
If Google is trying to be the leftist thought police then why haven't they removed the literal Nazis, the homophobic religious nuts, the Pizzagate conspiracy theorists..?
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Because the profit motive in the US isn't to be leftist thought police.
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What do you mean "when we do this in America"?
DCMA takedown notices are already doing exactly this.
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Except the US government doesn't round up citizens for reeducation. We don't (yet) have a citizenship score that can greatly restrict our ability to travel or buy property.
China on human rights really does make us look great, even with the bullshit at the boarder.
Don't think so, you go live there.
I don't think they'll bother (Score:2)
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nobody in America changes their vote based on a youtube video.
You're right only Facebook and Twitter posts make people change their votes! /s(is that needed even? Lol)
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It is already done in America. Prominent dissenting political websites are being pushed down or censored in search results right now, and the government gets a log of everything you do with Google. How can it be much worse in China?
SO MUCH WINNING! (like Charley Sheen) (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: KAVANAUGH is one sick mofo (Score:1)
Democratic lying scum. But I repeat myself thrice.
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You repeated yourself twice. The first instance isn't a repetition.
Last two criminal news I noticed something (Score:2)
Re:The problem with Capitalism vs Don't be Evil (Score:5, Informative)
As a public company, Google is required to build as much value for its shareholders as possible
No they aren't. This is a myth.
Corporations are not required to maximize profits or shareholder value [nytimes.com]
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It is most definitely a myth that officers of a company are legally obligated to do so. The idea that they are is a lie propagated by Friedman and fans to cover for bad behavior. Even SCOTUS said it isn't required, in the Hobby Lobby case. Dodge v Ford was similar although it the Friedmans of the world will often twist it into supporting their side. Anti-corporate (except as it benefits themselves, as always) types like Al Franken trot it out as a scare tactic also.
There is always a lot of pressure from act
Do any of these people (Score:3)
ever sign NDA's? Either during the hiring process, or while terminating their employment?
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ever sign NDA's? Either during the hiring process ...
NDAs are a barrier to recruitment. Some people refuse to sign them, and they tend to be the best people who have plenty of other options.
... or while terminating their employment?
In this case, he quit. So he isn't getting any severance either way.
Re:Do any of these people (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called a Confidential Information and Invention Assignment (CIIA) Agreement. And yes him talking about this is a violation of it.
In this case the point is moot.
Google won't press this issue against him in court.
They'd open themselves to pre-trial discovery.
The very last thing Google wants is more investigation, publicity, and press around this topic.
Strat
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He may be sued soon by Alphabet for forcing them to reveal their plans, but this has blown up to the point of having an Senate Inquiry that they would look extremely foolish to sue a whistleblower...
Sure, they would win, but it'd be a pyrrhic victory. They make themselves look like data-hungry geeks, chasing after potential scientific discoveries/advertising money at any cost.
I've said it before (Score:5, Interesting)
In particular, he is turning over a LOT of AI R&D that America actually paid for, over to China.
This current project is simply an extension of the rest of what he has done.
China is going to gut Google like it did GE and IBM.
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My feeling is if somehow Congress forces Alphabet/Google to abandon their China plans, Pichai may revert all their R&D back to US again...
I can get their execs' feeling though... That China money looks *so* damn good... "What (further) harm could it do to the Chinese people?"
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"China is going to gut Google like it did GE and IBM"
There's an old Irish saying: "Touch the devil and you can't let go."
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He has been busy shutting down a number of projects and then creating new ones elsewhere.
That's his job.
You racist fucker, why shouldn't Chinese people be allowed to do research?
China isn't gutting Google. Google is doing it to itself, same as GE and IBM. Which is why those 2 companies are now out of business and bankrupt. Aren't they??
Chinese communists killed over hundred million of their own citizens, that regime should not have access to any modern anything.
It's a Beta. (Score:2)
Coming soon a country you might be in.
Big Brother Buisiness is profitable.
So (Score:1)
They've effectively made censorship tools and implemented them in the US by tricking their devs into writing the code for it.
Remember when.... (Score:1)