Retyped because of a page break.....

"but any programmer can tell you that security typically comes last. You secure code and test it out for security after the functionality is created. This is asshat backwards to your claim that systems are designed to be secured. "

Patently and demonstrably false. I am "any programmer" and the systems I develop *start* with security. Even www.beating-diabetes.org already has the security infrastructure in place. Before I wrote the first line of CSS or HTML, I developed a security library for hashing, validating, and challenge/response along with password change requests going to verified email. Every company I have ever worked for has made security the first thing we developed if there was to be any personal information whatsoever.

Yeah, I'm still not quite sure what point JMO is trying to make.

Data protection is pretty important at my company.

I don't think jmo is a developer for a living. He males an assumption based on a small sampling of data and expands it to be all pervasive.

I mean, I'll certainly agree that, for a variety of reasons, you can't assume your data is secure. But, it's usually due to isolated incompetence/malice from outside users; not systematic negligence of the company that makes the product. NSA-related issues aside, of course.

I don't really care that Google knows everything about me. I'm a single insignificant individual using their service, they don't care about me personally. They just use my information to determine what sort of advertisements I get. They're not out for me.

@jmo,

I had already made plain in my first post -- in all caps, no less -- that I agreed that the internet exists to facilitate information flow and sharing. Rather than interpret me to be deliberately contradicting myself, you should have interpreted my later post with this in mind, and you would have seen that I was referring to your odd argument that this somehow implies that privacy cannot, even in principle, be pursued.

But no. You have some huge hangup about how I supposedly only argue because I love it and how I'm always trying to be sneaky and unreasonable. Look, I don't know what bad experience in your past drives that, but it's not reasonable, it's not true, and it ONLY serves to make you misinterpret me, and waste your time snarking instead of defending your points.

On to those points:

"1) Every person should look into and understand how a service operates."

Sure.

But lots of people should look into lots of things. If somebody's going door to door selling magical patent medicine for $100 a bottle, then I suppose that on one hand, it's the buyers' own fault for not knowing anything about science or money. On the other hand, don't ask me to say nice things about the seller. Making your money by getting people to hurt themselves based on their ignorance is not a good thing to do.

"Everyone using Google either values their money more then the possibility of information being used for possibly immoral but legal purposes, or has not bothered to learn about the service they are using. "

Yep pretty much.

"Everyone using Google has the means to look up for themselves the information they need to make a decision on which service to use based on their own moral beliefs. "

Eh, that I doubt. Sure, you can read their TOS. But to realize how much power that data gives them requires some sophistication in knowledge about data, statistics, how they can be used, even law. I doubt most people have the practical ability to realize the impact, although of course there are articles telling them, so there's that.

"If you do I can't really see why you are upset with Google for their practices."

See above re: patent medicine seller.

"They have to make money somehow since they don't charge for their services"

They were making plenty of money from ads. And I'm not even arguing against targeted ads. It's the utter expressed contempt for privacy or guarantees that appalls me.

I am a dev for a living draug. Kudos to you for working at a company that focuses on security. Come on though, you know perfectly well that many companies skimp on security, and even if they focus on it they skimp on security testing. Case in point, vulnerabilities like heart bleed. Over the past few years companies have had their security penetrated over and over. Anonymous has been able to get past the security of even top security companies and expose top exec information. Recently there has been a huge shift towards security, but there are still plenty of companies that ignore vulnerabilities reported to them. Facebook and Apple to name a few.

And obviously Google only sells the aggregate data, it would be illegal for them to sell the actual data. I think I stated pretty clearly that what they do is legal, but morally bothers me.

How is aggregate data immoral? If that were the case, marketing research firms would be completely immoral.