[Foundation-l] In defence of Google

Sat Jan 20 00:59:22 UTC 2007

On 1/19/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 1/19/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/19/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > >[...]
> > > But I don't even remember what search engine I used before Google.  I
> > > think it was Yahoo.  Do Wikipedia pages rank high in Yahoo?  Ah,
> > > Yahoo, I remember when *that* used to be the corporation that everyone
> > > loved and praised.  Now they're helping the Chinese put people in
> > > jail.  I wonder how long before Google does that little bit of evil.
> > > AFAIK they haven't actively helped the government put people in
> > > jail...yet.
> >
> > If you fault Google for their policy, and Yahoo for theirs, that's
> > fine... but for all of our sakes, don't just go around harshing on
> > them on the Wikipedia foundation list.  If you are going to bring up
> > the question, bring it up in the context of what's really wrong here
> > (nobody understands the "right" thing to do about it) and how WP can
> > participate in fixing that (figuring out the right thing).
> >
> Actually I wasn't faulting Google for their policy at all.  I was
> faulting Yahoo for theirs, namely for divulging confidential
> information knowing full well that information was going to put an
> innocent person in jail.  As I said, I'm not aware of Google actually
> doing that yet.

You're giving several people the impression that you are trying to bag
on several corporations.

> > This is not the place for merely bagging on the corporations.  It's
> > one of many places where real serious discussions could start on what
> > to do next.
> >
> Well, this isn't the place for praising corporations either, then.

It's not praising them to note that they're an integral part of how
the Internet's typical user experience works, and how Wikipedia is
being used by typical users.

-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com