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Comment by rufugee | Hacker News Reader

It always surprises me how excited people get about Google Fiber, yet how up-in-arms they get about GMail, Google+ and other Google services which tend to invade and/or expose your privacy. Do you really think that using a advertising company's fiber as your gateway to the internet is going to offer a private experience? Don't you see how much easier it will make it for them to gather your personal details and habits? Do you really think Google won't use your data to their advantage?

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All the other telecoms have far worse privacy records than Google does. Who were the original companies implicated in illegal NSA wiretapping? Verizon, AT&T, and Bell South. [1] What happened to the CEO of the one company that refused, Qwest? He went to jail on trumped-up insider trading charges. [2]

[1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-ns...

[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30...

... and google is racing to catch up. There is a monopoly to be created and rent to be extracted and no matter how "not evil" an organization is, if they play in this sphere, they must adhere to this model or they won't be in business.

Everything you need to know is written in a very nice book, recently published:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Wu#The_Master_Switch

... you could have predicted well in advance that google would go this route.

Yes, but Google Fiber is a product I can pay for. I don't mind trading personal information / eyeballs for Google's services but I much prefer to give them money to get a superior service I'm already paying someone else for.

Google flat out tells us that they are using the content of emails to direct ads. Secret, deep-packet snooping on a broadband connection? That's a whole new level of evil.

The Google Fiber Privacy Policy seems relatively strong in the "Google Fiber Internet is a dumb pipe" sense:

Technical information collected from the use of Google Fiber Internet for network management, security or maintenance may be associated with the Google Account you use for Fiber, but such information associated with the Google Account you use for Fiber will not be used by other Google properties without your consent. Other information from the use of Google Fiber Internet (such as URLs of websites visited or content of communications) will not be associated with the Google Account you use for Fiber, except with your consent or to meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.

https://fiber.google.com/legal/privacy.html

(Google Fiber TV, not so much)

When the reference point is Comcast one has a high probability of being applauded.

We're excited for better service at lower prices, and if you think Google would be (or is) the only one snooping traffic, well I think you're giving a lot of trust to people like Comcast.

More competition in this space can only be a good thing. Besides, Google has done a whole lot more to protect their users from government surveillance than the telcos have.

You are comparing a free service where they are up front about their plans to a pay for service which doesn't detail any plans you describe. I have to ask, do you think they would?

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