[hk.com]

To you Gmail groupies and Google fans,

You may find it upsetting to find out that Privacy international as ranked some of the major online services and Google has come in at the bottom of the ranks in a
recently released report. What a surprise! ;-)

http://www.privacyinternational.org/...]=x-347-553961

Interim Rankings Results are available here:
http://www.privacyinternational.org/...imrankings.pdf

In turn Google has embarked on a smear campaign within the media to discredit both PI and the report to which Privacy International replied:
http://www.privacyinternational.org/...]=x-347-553964


In todays HK Standard/Reuters the issue also got coverage:
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_d...d_str=20070612

The best part is this - "But Google claimed it has a good record of protecting user privacy." Four months ago they entered into an agreement with the Indian government to release IP's of google users being negative of the government.

[discobay]

Yeah but GMail is still good! Besides ... Hong Kong's air pollution is f**ked but that doesn't mean I'm going to pack up and leave *cough*.

[hk.com]

That is a very simplistic and unbalanced comparision discobay.

[discobay]

It's a difficult call when the company in question does so much "good" in the world. My (internet) life is so much easier because of what they develop. It is probably true that they monitor their users' activities and snitch to the Chinese government at the drop of a hat but then they are not alone. Yahoo is another high profile example. Were this five years ago then I would probably have steered away from Google and used another (less useful) search engine and continued using my (deficient) hotmail email account. But I like many of us am tied into Google's products. I realise that in a small way I am indirectly helping Google make money but there are worse sins and you don't need to look further than here in Hong Kong.

[hk.com]

what is genius is how they "buy/bribe" the mind share of people like you and at the same time take away something that is intangible to you and profit from it. Something you can't measure or put a value to until it too late - your privacy. That is what is totally amazing and incredible achievement of this company.

[hk.com]

Here is the scoop on CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/interne....ap/index.html

[jgl]

Have you guys seen Google Web History? It's a seriously freaky experience:

http://www.google.com/history