Matt Cutts vs VW

[Brett_Tabke]

Normally, I write off ValleyWag as just another tabloid paper intent on muckraking all the yellow journalism page views it can muster. It's sensationalist divisive headlines, half truths, personal comments, ValleyWag is the tech digital Yang to the National Enquirer's analog Ying. It's nickname, "VallyeScag" has been earned the old fashion way.

Matt Cutts has been masterful with the press and used his blog effectively for Google in the last few years. So I was quite surprised to see Matt Cutts taking issue with VS over a bit of a formula slash-n-burn puff piece. He gave them undeserving credit and presence. I think it is safe to say that ValleyWag has had much more of an impact inside the Valley, than out of it and SillyValley workers are more sensitive to its stories.

Cutts's response is carefully thought out, but was far too wordy a response to such a slash-n-burn piece. Don't give them the time of day Matt. With sites like ValleyWag parsing every sentence and nuance for the slightest perceivable misstep. With that type of 'gotcha journalism' hiding under every rock, is it any wonder that Google reps have kept Larry and Sergey under hermetically sealed cones-of-silence for the last few years? Is it any wonder Google went into bunker mode last year?

Matt's address took on the issue of privacy. Google is currently in the cross hairs of the debate. This issue is going to keep coming up and coming up. Until Google comes out with a privacy policy that reflects their users, Google is going to continue to find itself on the fangs end of such venomous articles.

Privacy is a litmus test and hot button issue for many people. This is as close as the tech sector gets to a version of an abortion debate. Those individuals wronged by Google's indifference to privacy will have the public voice louder and more committed to doing Google wrong than a thousand satisfied customers. I strongly believe that if Google does not come out with a new privacy policy and statement that directly addresses these issues with a new direction - they will be doing damage to their future.

Nonetheless, it is an interesting exchange. Be sure to read both for a solid perspective:
[mattcutts.com...]
[gawker.com...]

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 7:44 pm (utc) on Mar 19, 2010]

[wheel]

The original story is an opinion piece, but one in which I have little disagreement. Matt's response is weak and difficult to read.

Brett's opinion above is the most succent,well written and easy to understand piece of all three, by a long shot. The valley wag should hire him!

[weeks]

What is the value of privacy? Information has value, but what is the value of less information? How would it be valued?

The issue isn't just social or political, it's also economic. Once some kind of value is placed on privacy, we can have a more rational and useful discussion. Such as, who pays?

Google is free, for example. They get paid by offering linking people searching for widgets to people with widgets. That should be understood: Use Google, and they are going to link you up.

Don't want that? OK, then you should pay.

I am weary of folks who want to use this or that service and do not want to pay for it.

Or, put another way, if there was an actual demand--an actual need--for privacy online, there would be a bigger businesses offering it.

[wheel]

I am weary of folks who want to use this or that service and do not want to pay for it.

I don't use nor do I want to use, nor do I want to pay for Google streetview.

Yet there's a clearly recognizable picture of my wife, plus a picture of the inside of my garage with boat and ATV's.

Remind me again what Google 'paid' me for their commercial use of mine and my wife's images?

[weeks]

I saw this in terms of a discussion of your using web services. Your example is a little different.

I understand your point, Wheel, but the law in the US is that anyone can stand on public property and take picture and publish them. It's freedom of the press.

Now, I cannot publish a picture of your wife in the garage and say or imply something that is not true. Nor can I use it in "commercial speech." Yes, that is a gray area. (Tiger Woods has a different situation; he is a public person.)

I've worked as a photographer, editor and publisher and run up on this time and again.

Professionals ask permission. And, if the subjects say no, you have to weigh the "public good" vs individual privacy in terms of use as a matter of ethics. The courts have gotten into that at times, as well. Generally, it boils down to no harm, no foul.

Which then brings us back to the value of privacy.

[wheel]

I don't live in the US.

As I noted, there's a world of difference between 'weeks, amateur photographer' taking a pic of my house, and Google doing it wholesale worldwide.

In one, I have a reasonable expectation of privacy. In the other, I have a reasonable expectation that what I'm doing in my own house is going to be published worldwide.

[weeks]

Of course, "weeks, amateur photographer" can take a picture today and publish it worldwide easily. Indeed, your privacy may be violated more, some may argue, by the amateur photographer than by Google, depending on the context of how the photo is presented.

[weeks]

In today's New York Times on the front page, there is this in a thoughtful feature on online privacy:

...“Technology has rendered the conventional definition of personally identifiable information obsolete,” said Maneesha Mithal, associate director of the Federal Trade Commission’s privacy division. “You can find out who an individual is without it.”

In a class project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that received some attention last year, Carter Jernigan and Behram Mistree analyzed more than 4,000 Facebook profiles of students, including links to friends who said they were gay. The pair was able to predict, with 78 percent accuracy, whether a profile belonged to a gay male.

So far, this type of powerful data mining, which relies on sophisticated statistical correlations, is mostly in the realm of university researchers, not identity thieves and marketers.

But the F.T.C. is worried that rules to protect privacy have not kept up with technology. The agency is convening on Wednesday the third of three workshops on the issue.

[nytimes.com...]

[edited by: engine at 3:35 pm (utc) on Mar 17, 2010]