Terms:
You stop suing us, we stop making you look like fools in court.
Google and Viacom have settled their copyright differences stemming from the media company's accusation that the Choc Factory was posting its shows on YouTube without permission. Viacom alleged that Google was allowing clips from programmes like South Park and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on YouTube in violation of its …
You seriously never considered that?
Wow. I don't know, maybe I'm the weird one. Maybe 99% of the planet never thinks that way and thus the unbridled adoration of Google on these forums.
I guess we both looked at the world from a different angle today.
Me, I fix things and make them exploit-proof for a living. I think this way all the time.
In my years here I have never witnessed "unbridled adoration of Google on these forums". I have witnessed a lot of shitting on Google, but no "unbridled adoration".
I think, perhaps, you are mixing up "choosing Google as the least terrible option amongst a sea of soulless peckerheads" with "unbridled adoration". That has more to do with your brand tribalism than any real-world pro-Google bias in these forums.
Google are completely, utterly, unrepentantly evil. But they happen to do something that benefits the average Joe from time to time, which makes them that ever so slightly less asstastic than the alternatives. Never mistake the fatalistic choice of "the assholes who will do the least amount of damage" for genuine affection.
Oh come on, Trevor. You can see it all over the place.
Chromebooks rise to a 4% share of laptops sold in a quarter?
>CHROMEBOOKS RULE THE WORLD WINDOWS IS DEAD LOL
[Mobile handset manufacturer of choice] is failing?
>SHOULD HAVE GONE WITH ANDROID LOL
(This one amuses me especially because HTC did in fact go with Android. HTC get blame for not going "pure" Android and sullying its perfection with SenseUI because obviously, Android in its pure form must always be profitable).
About the only two Google products that don't get squirted with commentard jizz every time they're mentioned are Google+ and Glass.
And don't ever suggest that Google are datamining you, that their whole business model is datamining you and always has been. These people think Google are somehow "on their side".
I don't think any of the bastards are on my side and I refute your "lesser evil" argument. Google are the greatest evil right now. Google made all this NSA bullshit possible and still make money from it.
I see the odd person - myself included - saying "Chromebooks have a place and I see them increasingly displaying Windows." I have yet to see someone say "Chromebooks rule the world" or anything similar.
I do agree that Windows is gasping it's last as an endpoint OS, but that isn't because "Google = good" it's because "Microsoft = bad". This is Microsoft's market to fuck up, and they're doing so with gusto.
There are commentards who like Android, myself among them. Fucking deal with it. It has over 60% of the endpoint market. If you don't like it, go cry in a corner because it's coping time, sir, and you aren't doing well there. Again: this was Microsoft's market to lose, and Android isn't winning because it's awesome. It's because Microsoft are fucking clownshoes and Apple are just too damned expensive. (Well, and some few among us actually *like* Android's UI better than iOS...though iOS 7 is a hell of a lot better than 6...)
As for Google datamining you...who has ever denied this? I don't know of any commenttards denying this. I haven't seen a single one. I have seem some shrug and say "who cares." Many say "that's a price I'm willing to pay."
Most of the rest of us, however, know damned well that Microsoft et al are datamining also, so when everyone is datamining the pants off of you what about that makes Google more evil than the next guy? They're all evil, but Google periodically does things that benefit us proles while they're busy being evil.
Microsoft doesn't.
Also, you don't "refute" my Google = lesser evil argument at all. You refuse it, but you don't provide an iota of evidence or reasoning. Microsoft are just as guilty of datamining as Google. So are Apple, Oracle, Facebook, Amazon and oh, so many others. These companies - Microsoft included - have all sunk billions into the technologies that enable this. Google just happens to be the best at it; that doesn't mean they are solely responsible for the privacyocalypse.
Are Google evil? Yes; but no more so than any of the other tech giants...and slightly less so than Microsoft. Microsoft treats their customers and partners alike as the enemy while treating end users with hostility and contempt. Google treats their customers and partner warily and end users like pets.
But Google does make an effort to take mediocre care of their pets. That's more than any other tech company out there is willing to do.
I really wish there was some way we could take this to email.
I'll just respond with 2 points (if you want to get my address out of the Reg's userdetails, please feel free btw).
1. Datamining you. Well. DNT on by default. They advertise Outlook.com mail as not being mined for advertising so it's going to be pretty embarrassing (given the Scroogled campaign etc) if that turns out to be false.
and
2. A view from somebody on the inside - Microsoft Killed My Pappy. I don't know if you're familiar with Scott Hanselmann but he and ScottGu have done a lot to redeem MS over the last few years in my opinion.
As he says, they did this under the aegis of Satya Nadella which is encouraging.
Now, if they'd only take an axe to the frankly bizarre and monstrous licensing system, there wouldn't really be much left to hate that didn't fall under the de gustibus rule.
And I actually quite like Android. I just strongly dislike Java and especially dislike the hypocrisy the commentards in claiming that Android is open source.
Nobody but Google can make a commit. Nobody but Google has the toolchain. Nobody but Google even has the source of the Play apps and APIs and those take over more and more core functionality with every release. Android was open source. It becomes more closed with each and every iteration and somehow, they don't notice.
That concerns me as a contributor to several open source projects including debian.
I am also a debian user for preference.
DNT is nothing but a parlor trick for the masses and you know it. Beyond licensing there is a lot to be upset with MS about. How they've treated partners, for one. For another, their outright hostile attitude towards their customers.
Microsoft tries to force the market instead of responding to it. At the end of the day, that's the crux of it. Google responds to the market. Both of them track you, but Google's better at it.
Consider that The Daily Show uses clips under the various fair use exceptions. No problem there except that Viacom have been known to issue take downs in the past of videos using clips by people that are there for critical or satirical purposes, two of the very reasons that protect the Jon Stewart show from the legal attentions of Fox and CNN.
Totally agreed.
That's a screaming laugh. YouTube? Protect copyright?
Why don't you go to YouTube right now and try a search for the name of any popular TV program name. You will see vast numbers of hits.
Now focus on the ones that have shortcut links in the descriptions, The vast majority of those are recruiting suckers' computers for zombie networks. I'm not brave enough or lack sufficient hubris regarding my technical skills, so I haven't done the tests, but I'd bet you are between one and three clicks away from being completed pwned. Thanks, google.
Remember the corporate motto. "All your attentions are belong to the google." Why the google shares any of the attention with the criminals is beyond my ken.