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While the government has been busy trying to sell their mining tax, there is one minister who has continued to make a prize goose of himself to the detriment of his portfolio and the government as a whole. His name is Stephen Conroy and he is, without a doubt, the most incompetent excuse for a communications minister in living memory.
Conroy has, at every stage, resorted to pathetic straw man arguments to attack people who oppose his censorship regime. With language reminiscent of Dubya, he accuses those of us who are against the internet filter as being in favour of child pornography – “Either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists” right? In the case of companies, his arguments are similarly simplistic and child-like; in response to Google’s well-articulated issues with the filter he simply stated that they “like cash”, as if somehow Google’s advertising revenue would be hurt by the introduction of an internet filter.
Most recently, he has attacked Google in a Senate estimates committee over their privacy breaches in regards to collecting wifi data with their street-view camera vehicles. Referring to Google CEO Eric Schmidt as “a bit creepy”, he continued that they have committed the “single biggest breach in the history of privacy”. Granted, Google stuffed up here. They shouldn’t have been collecting the Wi-Fi data. However, they apologised unreservedly, with the senior VP for Engineering and Research stating:
The engineering team at Google works hard to earn your trust—and we are acutely aware that we failed badly here. We are profoundly sorry for this error and are determined to learn all the lessons we can from our mistake.
Conroy, in my view, appears infantile for mounting such an ardent attack on Google. Both the Herald and News Limited gave him top billing on this story, but framed it unsympathetically as an act of “petulant” desperation. The issue here is one of simple psychology; Google is undoubtedly one of the most ethically respected companies in the world. Their motto “Don’t be evil” is a remarkably hard one for a large corporation to live up to, but pulling out of China has given them a huge degree of credibility. Conroy, on the other hand, has no credibility whatsoever. He has been the laughing stock and the focus of much disdain for anyone in the IT world ever since he introduced his internet censorship plans. To attack Google wins him no friends, and simply makes it look like he’s trying to engage in some sort of tit-for-tat public brawl.
In fact, I would argue that his failure at selling the NBN can be explained by widespread opposition to the internet filter in IT circles. People who would otherwise be emphatic in their support for Labor on the basis of a national broadband network are non-plussed if this comes with the baggage of an imposed censorship filter.
Rudd needs to dump Conroy and he needs to dump him now. This clown has done enough damage.
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Bravo, well said JJ.
The filter is full of effluent and the Minister is drowning in it.
I’ll be the last one to defend Conroy so don’t take this as a defence against him.
BUT… Google has kept the data and deserve all the blasting they get.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/privacy-watchdog-probes-googles-wifi-data-harvest-20100519-vckv.html
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/3734556/Google-keeps-Wi-Fi-data-in-some-countries
Feel free to disprove me as I hope that these articles are old and/or mistaken.
*spit @Conroy* just for good measure…
Seems they may have deleted ’some’ of it, but not all:
“We are keeping data from Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic,” a Google Australia spokeswoman said.
My reading of it (here: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/google-keeps-private-wifi-data-20100524-w738.html) points to Google retaining the data as they may be required to use it in pending court cases against them for a breach of privacy.
“The company would not say why it needed help from Australian regulators in disposing of the private data. Some have speculated that Google is retaining the data in some countries in case it is needed as evidence in any court cases against Google.
Google has also decided to retain the data it collected from British home networks, but the UK Information Commissioner has said in response that it could see no reason for preserving the data and asked Google to delete it as soon as reasonably possible.”
After their extensive apology – here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection-update.html – I don’t consider it possible that they are retaining for anything insidious.
I must pay more attention to article detail claerly! Does an apology cut it? Not for me because as much as they have backpeddled I still believe they fully intended to do it. I still say they are full of shit re: accident.
IMHO, you don’t NOT notice that you are collecting data, especially in that many countries. A big company like Google wouldn’t overlook these things IMHO. My basis is looking at it from an IT perspective where it has to get stored somewhere… They have gone ‘oops we didn’t notice the code was there’ – that is somewhat believable but not everything they would have had to NOT notice. Someone has to account for storing it in a database or file system somewhere… The resources to support it… etc etc.
ehhhhhh maybe I’m just being a sceptic…
Conroy is still a pratt for pissing in their pocket.
Heh. You might be right that Google was hoping no-one would notice. It’s entirely possible. However, for Conroy to attack them as emphatically as he did just makes him look silly. It’s just an example of the way he’s completely mismanaged his portfolio.
Google would be a wonderful proponent of the NBN on Labor’s behalf if they’d merely dump the filter. They don’t seem to realise that.
Google are doing their 500,000 homes with FTTH (Fibre To The Home) at some stage if not already. Puts the NBN to COMPLETE shame, granted with a smaller test user base. A good partner they would definitely make if you could put that sort of power in the hands of a private company.
http://www.cracked.com/article_18540_5-reasons-you-should-be-scared-google.html
Cracked is a satire site and they use wikipedia as the primary source in a lot of articles but this particular article contains pretty common knowledge regarding Google and its business practices.
The article humorously points out why we shouldn’t write Google off as being the ethical version of microsoft (they are a corporation after all).
Enter big corporatation – Enter my scepticism.
Their moto is ‘Don’t be Evil’… thats like something with big pointy teeth saying ‘Trust Me’ lol…
I think we’re getting a little off-topic here. The central theme should be Conroy and his complete hypocrisy in attacking Google. Google is not infallible. They are, however, far more credible than Conroy. This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black (hence my cheesy photoshop :p)
“Do no evil” has never ever been Google’s motto it is complete bullshit and as a story should be consigned to the scrap heap. Do no evil was a response to a question about one senior executive’s personal philosophy. Spin doctors did the rest.
“Google is undoubtedly one of the most ethically respected companies in the world. ”
Can you provide evidence to support this claim?
Can you provide some examples to support this claim?
http://bit.ly/9Yfa7y (shortened by Moderator as it broke the layout)
Google has long claimed that under the new policy, it “anonymizes” IPs after nine months. But that word doesn’t mean what they think it means. If a cookie stays intact for 18 months, then restoring those missing eight bits is trivial. Though Google erases the bits on your nine-month-old search queries, they remain intact on your newer queries – and both sets of queries carry the same cookie info.
The W29 is wise to this — not to mention the fact that Google has completely ignored the Directive’s six-month limit.
I wasn’t even looking just went to one of my usual sites and look what there.
Google is a large corporation that just has a different PR machine to most.
“Report Indicates Google Has Sterling Reputation”
- http://bit.ly/bY8pxZ
Year after year the results have been similar. Pulling out of China was also a very powerful decision based on ethics and not profit motives.
Again, my argument is not that Google is infallible. It isn’t.
My argument is that Conroy shouldn’t be throwing stones at anyone as he has no credibility whatsoever.
Also http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/26/aussie_filter_paranoia/
In a performance punctuated with all the hallmarks of paranoia, Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy laid into internet giant Google earlier this week, suggesting that the approach taken by their chief executive, Eric Schmidt, is a “bit creepy”.
I suspect the Conroy attack on Google is an attempt to redirect the argument from the internet filtering discussion.
Google was silly (but apparently have or will soon rectify the error), Conroy seems to be certifiable for pursuing this policy to the bitter end.
I agree 2533. He is trying to redirect the argument, and – judging from the comments here – it looks like he may have succeeded with some. Sigh
Seems there are powers that be in the US that want to know more!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/28/2911634.htm
Google and the filter are separate issues. Conroy wants people to talk about google, not the filter. Judging by the comments here he seems to have succeeded.
Last year he did the same thing with iiNet.
Wake up people.
My sentiments exactly!
Would you guys prefer if the discussion revolved around how much of a stupid arsehole Stephen Conroy is?
Seriously though, we all know this shit isn’t going to pass the senate. The scheme has been postponed and the government has bigger issues to deal with at the moment (RSPT anyone?).
Um, yes :p
And Senate-wise.. you’re probably right. If Labor wins, the senate makeup will likely see the Greens holding the balance of power. Unless the Liberals hold a conscience vote on the issue, I doubt they’ll support it. Especially seeing as Abbott will be rolled for Hockey or Turnbull should they lose.
Not to mention Fielding will be gone