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Comment by Svip | Hacker News Reader

I am never in full agreement with Julian Assange, but Google has in recent years, shown their disapproval of privacy. Eric Schmidt's 'if you have nothing to hide' ideal expresses quite clearly - to me - the fundamental problem in his - and by extension, Google's - view on data and users.

But I must confess, that Julian Assange seem to be rather well spoken. And language wise - at least - it was a rather joy to read. Seemingly unlike the book he was reviewing.

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This particular misconception of Eric's words really annoys me because it's blatant misrepresentation. What's more, the press (who area always looking to create controversy in the interests of page views), only mentions half the quote. Full quote [1]:

> I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities

Google is subject to the laws where it operates. Just this week a judge compelled Google to comply with warrantless searches (ie National Security Letters) [2]

Any sane person should.

For anything you do online you should ask yourself this "what would your reaction be if this were made public?" The gist of Eric's quote is that what you may consider "private" just isn't due to changing company policies (eg Facebook's continued privacy snafus), bugs, the courts and the legislature.

There is a good lesson in this. Just go to bing.com/social and search for "cheat exam" or similarly embarrassing terms to see why treating the Internet as public is a very good idea.

Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer but the views expressed are my own and don't represent my employer.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt#Privacy

[2]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57587003-38/judge-orders-g...

I don't see how it's a misrepresentation. Schmidt could have left out, "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place" without changing the substance of the rest of the message.

Has he issued a clarification elsewhere that contradicts the parent's interpretation? He could, easily.

> changing the substance of the rest of the message

It most definitely changes the substance. From Google being the perpetuator of the said privacy problem, it becomes a participant that is legally bound to participate by YOUR legal system.

Disclaimer: Googler.

And what about the quote two paragraphs down where in 2012, after knowing about how the previous sentence was interpreted, he again said, "if you don’t have anything to hide, you have nothing to fear"?

My recollection of this is that he was clearly joking at the time, but you are talking about a guy who gives the same speeches and talks hundreds of times a year, and it only takes one time for someone to take stuff out of context and present it badly.

I think if you met Eric you'd realize he's just another hacker who ended up becoming a CEO. If he was posting here, he would be indistinguishable from most people in terms of his views, concerns, etc.

That's fine, and it may very well be the case. But I don't think that the rest of the quotation is so profoundly different that just posting the first sentence misrepresents the quote.

It sounds like you're saying that the first part of the quotation doesn't accurately describe Schmidt's views on privacy. I don't know him, but, sure, most people have more than one sentence's worth of opinion on most issues. :)

Did he say that? The only reference I can find to that comes from a PC World story[1], which appears to not only be a paraphrase (presumably of the original quote), but it links to an article about keeping your facebook profile cleaned up for people searching for dirt on you and doesn't quote Schmidt or even mention him.

[1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/252514/hey_employers_my_faceb...

Are you required to keep search logs? Are you required to correlate searches with users? It seems like it's the choice to retain and analyze those that puts you in the position of having to turn them over.

DDG doesn't do that. It's a participant in the same legal system.

You misread me. I said the first sentence doesn't add to or change the meaning of the second. You're saying the second does change the first.

If he wanted to make your point unambiguously, he could/should have left off the first sentence.

Yes, he could have, without changing the substance, but it's a misrepresentation because the context makes pretty clear to a lot of folks in a way the original does, and they removed that context.

The oft attempted interpretation of the original quote is that Eric doesn't believe anything should be private online, and that anyone who wants privacy must be doing bad things.

As the context makes clear, his point was more that for better or worse, things generally aren't private online, and even if they wanted it to be, plenty of retention is legally required.

I've read the quote several times and while it does say that things generally aren't private online it also clearly suggests that you shouldn't be doing things that you don't want other people to find out about which itself suggests that anyone wanting privacy is doing "bad" things.

No, it doesn't suggest they are good or bad at all, just that people will find out about them anyway.

The first part implies that they're bad, even with the additional context. If there are other quotes that make your point cleanly, I think they'd be more convincing evidence.

Again, I personally can't see how you can read this implication into it, particularly without any tone or other information.

But you are certainly welcome to your opinion. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

It may suggest TO YOU that "anyone wanting privacy is doing bad things", but that is not what was said, and it is not what was implied. Maybe you're projecting?

Let's try a hypothetical parallel. "If you really don't want to go to jail, maybe you shouldn't be smoking pot in front of American cops." See how in my statement, there's no value judgement about smoking pot, and there's no value judgement about wanting to stay out of jail, there's just an observation about the realities of the world. This is NOT the same as "only bad people want to stay out of jail", nor "only bad people smoke pot", NOR EVEN "only bad people want to smoke pot and also stay out of jail". It's just "people who want to smoke pot and stay out of jail may be at the mercy of forces beyond their control."

I have no idea what Eric actually thinks. Maybe he does actually think that privacy should be outlawed or some other hilariously socially-unacceptable belief. But in the much-quoted quote, he said nothing of the kind. Protestations to the contrary are simply "I want to believe he's evil" paranoia.

Disclaimer: Googler

Except he didn't say or imply that you should do those actions in a different context, he said you shouldn't do those actions at all.

Why didn't he say, for example, "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know then don't publish it publicly and non-anonymously and don't use a cloud service like Google."

I haven't seen him say anything that would suggest that he holds an opinion different than the popular interpretation of the quote in question. And you would think, given the criticism, that he would have taken the opportunity to correct that interpretation if it was not what he meant.

> I've read the quote several times and while it does say that things generally aren't private online it also clearly suggests that you shouldn't be doing things that you don't want other people to find out about which itself suggests that anyone wanting privacy is doing "bad" things.

I found it's surprising that you interpret the quote this way. Here's my interpretation: privacy on the Internet is an illusion.

I tried [1], it's empty. What was your point anyway?

[1] http://www.bing.com/social/search/updates?q=cheat+exam&g...

I think the point was that you could directly search for people who were about to cheat on their exam. It's a pretty disingenuous example since you could do exactly the same thing on Google: "cheat exam" site:twitter.com or just directly on Twitter.

Given the extent to which large multinationals can and do fiddle the accounting to end up recording profits in the most advantageous tax jurisdictions, it strikes me as somewhat significant that they don't do the same over privacy issues.

Would it be technically or legally impossible to partition data between different privacy regimes? I realise there isn't a pressing consumer awareness of the need, and hence cost, but it does bother me a little that "my" cloud data is controlled by the nationality of the service, rather than my own.

The matter is hugely complicated with CDNs, multinational infrastructure, etc, but there's some unease about ceding control to a legal system in which I have very no or little power to effect change. Especially one which has a taste of the power which modern data-vacuuming can provide, and seems unlikely to give it up.

What you just described is why there is an increasing need for a global government. When companies span continents, they can pick and choose which laws in what countries suit them best, and the citizens of every other country the company inhabits are powerless to stop it.

No. Global government is not a logical requirement to combat these behaviours. For example, enforced transparency and regulation with harsh punishments (perhaps based on agreements between nations) could effect the same, without the horrible risks of centralizing power.

"(perhaps based on agreements between nations)"

This is a massive and in my mind entirely unfeasible assumption.

His words betray a naive understanding of how humans choose to harm one another. For example high school students have been beaten to death for being gay, or bullied into suicide for geeking out about online gaming. Martin Luther King was investigated and harassed by the FBI and CIA; now there is a statue of him on the National Mall.

> If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

No. There are things that we all do that are moral, ok, and even legal, that can be used against us. Privacy violations enable that.

The thing is, in context of the whole quote, this is all about illegal activity very specifically. The larger point was that Google isn't allowed to be a confidential friend of yours by law, even if it wanted to be. You think Schmidt isn't aware of MLK and the "it gets better" campaign? You can take any sentence out of context and make a person seem cruel and unthinking.

Look carefully at the whole quote. He treats the collection and retention of data by Google as a fixed reality that everyone needs to work around--despite the fact that he was Google's chief executive at the time and had the power to set or alter those policies.

U.S. law does not require this collection or retention of data; federal access is a consequence of Google's policies, not a cause.

I don't think Schmidt is cruel. I do think that like many ambitious people, he has a blind spot for conceptions of the world that conflict with his goals.

Reading the full quote, it still seems to fulfil my original vision of his ideal. Sure, it is phrased less clearly, but if his intent is to describe a warning to people (which is totally commendable), then he should have phrased it as one. His 'maybe' describe a carelessness to the issue, as if he doesn't care.

Although, I do have my own ideas about how much Google actually care about my privacy, hmm...

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