[vox] orkut is evil

[Peter Jay Salzman]

just to play devil's advocate...

On Sun 08 Feb 04,  3:47 PM, Mark K. Kim said:
> Interesting article.  Well... I can certainly understand the concern but
> if I may point out a few things:
> 
>  - Orkut is only affiliated with Google.  It's designed and run by
>    a Google engineer, but it's not technically "Google's Orkut."
>    <You can insert all the reasons Google controls Orkut here, but..>
>    I'd expect Register to be more accurate...
 
i understand, but on a pragmatic level, the distinction is meaningless.

if orkut is indeed mining information, whether they're "affiliated" or
"owned" by google, the end result may or may not be the same.

if you read the spam exposes on /., you'll see that words like
"affiliate" and "reciprocal business locus" are words that spammers use
to hide their identity.

>   - Passport is a password and user information (including
>     credit cards, as I recall) management system.  They should
>     *not* be allowed to distribute information without the
>     user's permission.
> 
>   - Orkut, on the other hand, is a information distribution system.
>     Anyone on the planet is supposed to be allowed to see the
>     information you give them - to your friends, people trying to
>     find you, etc.  That's the nature of the website.  It only
>     makes sense that Orkut puts that in their privacy statement
>     and reserve such right and inform the user about it.  Now, perhaps
>     they should restrict themselves on how and in what manner
>     they are allowed to distribute the information, but if I were
>     an Orkut engineer I wouldn't be so quick to give up rights
>     straight off the bat on a website that's still in beta.

whether they're a socail network or not, i just want to point out that
orkut now owns my favorite pictures of geordi (my cat).  according to
their TOS, they can use that picture however they want.  they can sell
it.

they can use YOUR picture.  they can start an anti-linux campaign,
and say "this ex-linux user went back to using microsoft" and stick your
picture on the campaign.

the point isn't whether it's a social network or not.  it's a matter of
control: what can people do with the information i post as content on
orkut.

if someone wants to be my friend, i don't mind them seeing that i happen
to like the beatles.

but i certainly don't want that piece of information going to people
hawking beatlemania crap.

even for social networks, there has to be some kind of moral acceptable
use.

> I'd watch 'em carefully but I wouldn't call them evil just yet.  Still,
> the article is a good reminder.  Just my 2 yens...
 
moi aussie.  i was mostly trying to gauge what other people thought.

pete