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Comment by spindritf | Hacker News Reader

I’m not saying that Page is going to abuse his power. I am saying that he could.

And do what? Be specific. Read my e-mails?

The constant fear of corporations has been puzzling me ever since I saw RoboCop. Back then at least it was tied to the fear of rising Japan who contributed to the world war not too long before.

The tech companies on the other hand have to be some of the most meek and least abusive organizations in existence. They pale in comparison even to a provincial police office who will dispatch storm troopers and search your house for plants based on the flimsiest of evidence.[1]

Yet in some people's mind they are this imminent threat, though not really specified. How does that happen?

[1] http://www.fourwinds10.net/siterun_data/government/law_enfor...

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1. Society has lots of problems. Probably mass incarceration is a much larger problem than over-armed local police departments. That doesn't mean we shouldn't address the problem of over-armed local police departments. It also doesn't mean the problems are unrelated.

Similarly, militarization of police and decreased personal privacy expectations are probably not completely unrelated. And we don't have to focus on one to the exclusion of the other.

2. Actually, yes, Google is reading your emails. Even if you don't use gmail, they probably know who you are and who you talk with and what you talk about.

Eroding privacy is a real social problem. I'm not sure why you are so quick to trivialize.

3. Tech corporations may have great PR, but they are certainly aware of the fact that they externalize costs in the forms of e-waste dumping and horrible labor conditions. Just because you don't have to see this stuff doesn't mean it does not exist.

Corporations may not be deliberately evil, but they are gorillas in the room with money and influence. Every time they turn around, someone gets hurt somewhere. So folks fear them, and rightly so.

> The constant fear of corporations has been puzzling me ever since I saw RoboCop.

The fear of corporations has to do with the fact that for many years the US population was under the thumb of a few capitalists who exploited and enslaved in all but name big portions of the populace (they even had their own private paramilitary police). It took many years and some brave men[1] and women[2] to expose the system and eventually give the federal government enough regulation power to curtail the power of corporations. Therefore, Americans in particular have very valid reasons to fear corporations, because they suffered their abuse and know what they're capable of.

The scary thing is that I'm not sure any of the robber barons ever had as much power at their disposal as Google does.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_roosevelt#Domestic_pol...

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_tarbell

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