Russell McMahon <apptech <at> paradise.net.nz> writes:

> Part of the planned progression towards Gogle changing its informal 
> corporate aim to "Be Evil".

Surely you mean ... to 'Be Like Everyone Else' ? Why di I have a feeling that I
will live to see the day when I will be looking back upon the
m$-is-the-arch-enemy days with nostalgia.
 
Google is based in the US and as such it is subject to the same DHS/NSC
regulations like everyne else there (like f.ex. m$ and the mozilla foundation,
who together produce 90% of the browsers in use - and udate them in timely and
non-transparent manner - ok mozilla updates are XML and anyone (hmm?) can read
them - this does not imply understanding them (cough, cough)). Iow, if they (any
one or several of these) are ordered to hand over huge amounts of data live to
the powers that be they will do it, and they will not talk about it. If they are
not doing it already. I am not worried, have no reason to, but judging by the
degree of cooperation achieved by a foreign government with these companies in
the building, maintenance and enforcement of the biggest firewall/big brother
system in the world - or at least the biggest known outside the US? - I have no
reason to believe that they will have any difficulty, or moral qualms, about
doing it @home, and more so (or less/fewer such) for doing it to others. Apple
is also based in the US. The only Browser which is sufficiently contemporary and
of non-US origin (and thus unlikely to contain any 'personalized' upgrades), is
Opera, which is based in Oslo, Norway. But most plugins it would use (also
upgraded often), are of US-origin. Flash, Quicktime, PDF, it's all from there.

Peter


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