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Comment by redthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

I'm seeing a whole lot of hyperbole around here for what still seems to be pretty much a non-issue. Don't like SPYW? Don't use it. It's one button. Click it, and move on. Between the Don't Be Evil script stunt from facebook/twitter and the content-free blogspam from Sarah Lacy/pandodaily, it seems like there are a few people out there who really, really want this to be an issue.

It isn't. Get over it.

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I don't understand: one click opt-out is ok for Google but not for Facebook's product launches?

Facebook's ongoing record is one of introducing opt-out products that harm user privacy. This is just a matter of preference. Nobody is hurt by SPYW, and it's far easier to disable than many of facebook's updates.

The issue with Facebook's changes to privacy was not that they are opt-out, but that they were opt-out and significantly impacted user privacy. Opt-out services on their own may be annoying, but they aren't a cause for alarm unless it hurts the user.

Google also has an ongoing PR problem with regard to privacy, with Eric Schmidt (sp? the recently ex-ceo dude) going on record as saying he doesn't believe in privacy.

Facebook at least pretends to care about privacy and then screws the user, whereas Google just skips to step B

Google has a team whose job is to make sure privacy needs of the user are met: http://www.dataliberation.org/

The Data Liberation program is all about being able to move your data from google to anywhere else. It has nothing to do with privacy.

How is removing one's data entirely from a product not related to privacy?

The data liberation thing is about adding data to Google, or copying the data out of Google so other services can use it. I may be wrong, but I have not seen anything that says you can use it to actually delete the information from Google's servers (if I'm wrong, please show me).

Doesn't facebook usually do it in regard to rather important privacy settings? Google's is more of a default search filter you can just turn off, no? I clicked the SPYW off the first day I saw it and haven't given it much thought since.

One reason Facebook's opt-out policy has annoyed people in the past is that it is rarely one click - the opt-out is usually buried deep within user settings, and generally users haven't been alerted to the fact that anything has changed to require them to opt-out.

I keep turning it off and it keeps turning itself back on.

If you're signed in, click the gear in the top-right. It's under settings or preferences or whatever the option they give you is. Scroll down a bit, and turn it off permanently.

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