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Comment by timothya | Hacker News Reader

Here's Appelbaum's reaction to the disclosure from Google: https://storify.com/bbhorne/jacob-appelbaum-s-legal-disclosu...

It's interesting to get a glimpse into the lengths that Google goes to push back against government requests.

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Google's an easy target, and their competition has hyped concerns about privacy and surveillance.

But this story just confirms years of reports that Google really does behave more honorably than many multinational corporations.

Google pushed back forcefully and repeatedly against these court orders. I don't know how they've managed to build this culture, but it shows it can be done.

You're right. I ignore most peoples' concerns about a Google boogeyman - but I also understand that for free email, calendar, docs, photo storage, etc., there is a price. I'm comfortable helping Google improve their algorithms and seeing text ads - the value in return is incredible.

But knowing that while Google mines my life, they'll even stand up against the U.S. government to protect that data... It makes me feel even better about the choice I made.

This makes Julian Assange's rant about Google and Eric Schmidt all the more concerning. The two should be working together instead of against each other. It's clear where Google's morals lie. It's just hard to tell at times as they are bound by the rule of law (and business).

> push back against government requests

should be rephrased to:

> push back against this government request

We don't know if Google fights these by default or if this was the exception. Until we know further, we shouldn't assume either way.

There's more than one instance where examples have come up: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/google...

His point is still correct. "The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data.'"

Do you have a source for this quote? Google didn't turn up anything meaningful but I'd like to give proper attribution when I hang it on my wall.

The attribution is arguably to Raymond Wolfinger who actually said the opposite, "The plural of anecdote is data", supposedly at a seminar at Stanford in the 60's or 70's. It also could be attributed to Roger Brinner, who said it to congress while testifying in 2012. I'd argue that it belongs unattributed, since it makes logical sense and no one ever attributes the phrase "the sky is blue" to anyone either.

http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2011/04/the-plural-of-an...

http://freakonomics.com/2010/04/29/quotes-uncovered-whats-th...

http://www.c-span.org/video/?307248-1/lessons-president-calv...

(thread resurrection!)

According to Mother Jones in 2013[1], Google hands over the data roughly 89% of the time. I think it's fair to say that when they fought it this time, it was an exception.

[1] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/google-microsoft...

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