No joke: Al Franken rings alarm over Facebook, Google | Hacker News Reader

No joke: Al Franken rings alarm over Facebook, Google

news.cnet.com

21 pointsdaegloe16 comments

"If you want a free e-mail service that doesn't use your words to target ads to you, you'll have to figure out how to port years and years of Gmail messages somewhere else, which is about as easy as developing your own free e-mail service."

Senator Franken: I've developed my own free e-mail service (AOL). Exporting from Google is WAY easier.

Franken's stance on SOPA was idiotic, but what he's saying here doesn't seem unreasonable.

My concern here is that I don't trust the guy when it comes to issues technical, which I don't think he understands at all (from prior experience). I guess "ringing the bell" is one thing, but I'm pretty concerned as to whatever legislation might come from this.

You can opt out of google targeted ads:

http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/ads/#toc-optout

As I understand it, you can install their opt-out plugin even if you do not have a google account. It seems to me that this makes his entire argument about Google moot.

They still collect the data, ready for consumption by the next regime.

"After you opt out, Google will not collect interest category information..."

This is really doubleclick out-out anyway, which it didn't seem like Franken was talking about (and google isn't allowed to combine with your google profile information anyway, per the doubleclick acquisition agreement (which I assume is binding forever, even to the next regime, though I don't know for certain)).

"If you don't want your search results shared with other Google sites -- if you don't want some kind of superprofile being created for you based on everything you search, every site you surf, and every video you watch on YouTube -- you will have to find a search engine that's comparable to Google. Not easy."

Any alternative to google or youtube could also do this.

I imagine an ideal scenario for him would include limiting google's querying share, youtube's video genres/types, and then legally forcing space for other competitors.

If we allow the law to slap down Internet giants for fear of monopolization, (which has been shown to be often temporary in this industry) then we've given an inch. They'll use it as a precedent to take the whole field.

It's amazing that a SOPA supporter can be so sane when it comes to privacy. Barring some details (which, to anyone except geeks like us are details), he's perfectly right, and it's good that politicians are starting to realise that privacy matters.

I was going to make my own meta comment: I can no longer read anything from Franken without wondering whether he is whoring for Big Entertainment.

Great, he's talking sense about Google & Facebook, and nonsense about SOPA.

Why would anyone be surprised that Franken would espouse a completely mainstream and widespread liberal position?

Wow, I voted for Franken. I guess I was being naive, but I was not expecting him to spurt nonsense that he has obviously not looked in to.

I'm going to write an angry letter. Too bad it won't do anything :(

Guess I should have seen this coming with his nonsense about SOPA, and his spectacularly weird line of questioning in Google & Yelp's appearance at the Senate hearing last year.

Aren't you pulling the completely standard "omg someone said something bad about us silicon valley guys" reflex?

It's in Google's and Facebook's direct financial interest to make privacy difficult for you to attain, and your senator is pointing that out. How is that a bad thing?

Tech companies aren't "the good guys" by definition.

It is a little weird because every other major corporation also has a lot of data about you. Your landlord can come into your house and sell a list of items you own to the highest bidder. Everyone you ever owe money to you sends all your information to the credit reporting agencies. And so on, and so on. Singling out Facebook and Google is a little unfair. At least they have a privacy policy that you can opt out of. The credit bureaus? Not so much.

tl:dr; "It would be a real shame if someone were to 'regulate' your industry, how about I give you some protection from these regulators."

Personally, I'd love it if Mr. Franken passed a bill that forbid the US government, its agents and assigns from using the data that these companies collect. While we're at it we should probably stop those companies that monitor the torrent sites from collecting that kind of information about people too.

He got thoroughly debunked by Danny Sullivan:

http://marketingland.com/debunking-senator-al-franken-on-goo...

Grandstanding and pandering is what politicians do best. Franken is no exception.

And?

is this supposed to be written by a professional journalist? Two vague quotes and no suggestion of the main point?

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