[vox] orkut is evil

[Michael J Wenk]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 06:00:40AM -0800, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> 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.

You may or may not get killed on the road while driving to work, and you
still go to work?  May not be the perfect analogy, but again, there's
risk in everything.  People track you in everything these days, and its
about as likely to cease as the sun is to supernova.  The risk and
danger is what makes life fun anyways :) 

> 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.

I wonder how a copyright suit would go... I thought click wrap
agreements were found to be unenforcable, so I wonder what would be
found if you sued em cuz they sold the picture.  
 
> 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.

They can do the same thing if they just snap a picture of you.  

> 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.


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

It sounds to me like you're trying to crucify them before they do
something morally unacceptable, Ie, as far as I know, they havent sold
the picture of Geordi to livenudecats.com, nor have they started an
anti-linux campaign and said Pete Salzman went from linux to MS, have
they?  

Capability does not always and in fact seldom implies intent.  

I know you were just playing the DA on this, but I felt obliged to
answer.