Adam Fields (weblog)

This blog is largely deprecated, but is being preserved here for historical interest. Check out my index page at adamfields.com for more up to date info. My main trade is technology strategy, process/project management, and performance optimization consulting, with a focus on enterprise and open source CMS and related technologies. More information. I write periodic long pieces here, shorter stuff goes on twitter or app.net.

12/15/2005

Rumours of Google acquisition of Opera

Filed under: — adam @ 12:19 pm

Fuckfuckfuck.

http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-5996531.html?part=rss&tag=5996531&subj=news

Dear Google: Please stop buying good companies/developers and ruining them with your consumer unfriendly terms of service and loose privacy policies. Thanks a bunch. – Earth.

And I quote from Opera’s privacy policy (http://www.opera.com/privacy/):

No personal information is collected or shared, and providing ad profile information in the browser is strictly optional. The Opera user’s Web usage is not tracked.

There’s nothing like this in any Google policy, because this very idea is antithetical to Google’s philosophy, which wants to collect and know everything about you and use that to “improve the Google user experience”/stock price. This phrase in the Opera privacy policy is critical to what makes Opera any good at all. Let’s all gather round and keep an eye on that if this rumor turns out to be true.


2 Responses to “Rumours of Google acquisition of Opera”

  1. Marina Says:

    I think you are the first person other than myself who has even hinted that Google is really a rather sinister company. My personal feeling is that they are aiming at some sort of Microsoft-style monopoly, or probably something even bigger. I just find them scary.

  2. adam Says:

    I don’t really know what they’re up to. Maybe it’s just making lots of money. There’s nothing wrong with that, per se. I just don’t like the hypocrisy about access to information, the constant assurances to trust them even as their previous promises melt away, and the sheer incredible amount of information that they’re collecting seemingly forever.

    I’ve written plenty more about this:

    http://www.aquick.org/blog/index.php?s=google&submit=Search

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