Data Liberation Front
p2pnet news view Advertising | P2P:- Looks good, eh? A folksy logo espousing data liberation. And the amateurishly executed hand makes it look really real.
But there’s nothing folksy or amateurish or real about it.
Because when we say Data Liberation Front we mean ‘Front’ as in ‘facade’.
It’s a Google site and if you like oxymorons, Google and data liberation in the same image make an excellent fit.
“The Data Liberation Front is an engineering team at Google whose singular goal is to make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products,” says the company.
“We do this because we believe that any data that you create in (or import into) a product is your own. We help and consult other engineering teams within Google on how to ‘liberate’ their products.”
But surely, if Google — a massive online advertising company — wasn’t tying up private and personal user data in the first place, the data wouldn’t need to be liberated.
Mission statement »»»
Users own the data they store in any of Google’s products. Our team’s goal is to give users greater control by making it easier for them to move data in and out.
Greater control? You mean they don’t have that now? Then who does? And why does it need an expensive team to make it possible?
And does “making it easier for them to move data in and out” mean it’s presently hard for users? And in and out of what?
A year ago, “I used to really like, and really believe in, Google,” I posted, going on
It was the first company to make sense of the search process and it seemed to be run by a genuinely innovative, genuinely P2P-conscious (as in ‘people to people’) crew.
I also believed it would try to live up to its Do No Evil claim and I was really sorry I didn’t have enough money to buy shares when it went public. It’s a pity, I said to myself. I’d really have loved to have been a part of such a forward-thinking company.
Then Bill Xia discovered Google was knowingly and deliberately helping China to keep its citizens in the dark and IMHO, things have been steadily sliding downhill ever since.
Once upon a time, Google’s help entry on censorship read »»»
Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by hand. We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results. To learn more about Google’s search technology, please visit …
“We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results.”
That’s a statement with power. But during the China censorship scandal, I think it was, the sentence was abandoned and the emphatic No Censorship statement was modified to »»»
It is Google’s policy not to censor search results. However, in response to local laws, regulations, or policies, we may do so. When we remove search results for these reasons, we display a notice on our search results pages. Please note: For some older removals (before March 2005), we may not show a notice at this time.
This isn’t to suggest Google is alone in kowtowing to China’s demands. It isn’t. Microsoft, Cisco and Yahoo are but three of many companies who, for hard-core business purposes, ignore the fact China is one of the most repressive countries in the world.
Now Google says it’ll only keep use of data on tap for nine months. But nine months is a very long time. What will it do with it during that period?
Meanwhile, it’s worth remembering last year Google was the only firm to completely fail an important six-month investigation into privacy practices employed by key Net-based companies.
Sorry, but Google is, after all, Google, which automatically means it can’t be automatically trusted.
“Visit our Google Moderator page to vote on and add suggestions on what you’d like to see liberated and why,” it says.
Meanwhile, to me this looks like yet another empty Google PR effort to snow the public.
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
(Cheers, Michael)
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
I posted – New Google data retention plan, September 9, 2008
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I used to really like, and really believe in, Google.
It was the first company to make sense of the search process and it seemed to be run by a genuinely innovative, genuinely P2P-conscious (as in ‘people to people’) crew.
I also believed it would try to live up to its Do No Evil claim and I was really sorry I didn’t have enough money to buy shares when it went public. It’s a pity, I said to myself. I’d really have loved to have been a part of such a forward-thinking company.
Then Bill Xia discovered Google was knowingly and deliberately helping China to keep its citizens in the dark and IMHO, things have been steadily sliding downhill ever since.
Once upon a time, Google’s help entry on censorship read »»»
Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by hand. We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results. To learn more about Google’s search technology, please visit …
“We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results.” That’s a statement with power. But during the China censorship scandal, I think it was, the sentence was abandoned and the emphatic No Censorship statement was modified to »»»
It is Google’s policy not to censor search results. However, in response to local laws, regulations, or policies, we may do so. When we remove search results for these reasons, we display a notice on our search results pages. Please note: For some older removals (before March 2005), we may not show a notice at this time.
This isn’t to suggest Google is alone in kowtowing to China’s demands. It isn’t. Microsoft, Cisco and Yahoo are but three of many companies who, for hard-core business purposes, ignore the fact China is one of the most repressive countries in the world.
Now Google says it’ll only keep use of data on tap for nine months. But nine months is a very long time. What will it do with it during that period?
Meanwhile, it’s worth remembering last year Google was the only firm to completely fail an important six-month investigation into privacy practices employed by key Net-based companies.
September 15th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
You just do not like Google and nothing it does will ever suit you.
September 15th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
^^ Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely – Lord Acton
Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my lords, that where laws end, tyranny begins – William Pitt the Elder
Cheers!
September 15th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Seems to me the data they liberate is actually the data the oppress on the demand of any kartel.
Be it your search data, Gmails, google blogs, videos and other.
How exactly does google liberate anything when they go around deleting everything?
PR BS.