Not true, for two reasons.

First, advertisers only pay if you click the on the ad. Advertisers can easily verify that the number of clicks Google claims corresponds to the number of hits their web site receives with a Google referral. There's some noise in that measurement, so the correlation isn't perfect, but it would be easy to see if it were systematically off.

Second, Google provides advertisers with extensive tools to help them determine how effective their ads are, or click "conversion rate", which boils down to revenue per click. Advertisers like Google because they can know exactly how effective their ad campaign is.

Note that I'm talking about Google's traditional method. In the last few years, Google has also acquired a (much smaller) business in "display" ads, in which Google gets paid per thousand ad "impressions". Even there, the advertiser can measure click-through effectiveness, though.

Google does not sell any data to the government, or to law enforcement agencies. Google complies with proper, legal requests for data, as specified by law, but does not get compensated for fulfilling those requests. Google is a publicly-traded company, which means they have to file extensive financial reports detailing their incomes and expenses so if I were wrong you could easily prove it.

(Disclaimer: I work for Google but I'm not speaking in an official capacity. My job at Google is writing code. But everything I've said here has been stated repeatedly in public by people who are official spokespeople. In particular with respect to the government request question, see David Drummond's many public statements.)

Actually, it's not. Certainly there are cases in which one can pay for speedier service, but those aren't all that common, particularly not in interactions with government. And where they do exist, they're open, published fees that are paid to the agency or company in question, not under-the-table bribes to an individual. Bribery does exist in America, but it's pretty rare, and trying to bribe a public official is a good way to go to jail.

The one major exception, of course, is campaign contributions. Though, theoretically, those can't be used to enrich the receiver.

Pretty much.

When I worked for IBM we tried to do business in Mexico. We didn't fail completely, IBM does have some small operations there, but we were perpetually hamstrung by the fact that company policies defined under the American model prevented us from competing effectively in Mexico. It sounds like someone at HP decided not to be so limited.

It's really sad. The endemic corruption in some of these countries really holds them back. I spent two years living in southeastern Mexico when I was a young adult (as a Mormon missionary), and I really learned to love the country, the people, the food, the language... Mexico is a fantastic nation, rich in natural resources, with many interesting cultures and sub-cultures and (American stereotypes to the contrary) a powerful work ethic. But the endemic corruption and all that it enables (e.g. drug-related violence, election fraud and inefficient business and government) make it impossible for the nation to realize its full potential.

Does it have to be e-mail? Google does provide a feedback mechanism on all of their products (the "Send Feedback" link at the bottom of the page or, in the case of the infinitely-scrolling G+, in the drop-down menu), and while that mechanism doesn't generally provide two-way communication, it definitely is read and taken into account. Sometimes the user does get a response, too, depending on the nature of their question or comment.

Google doesn't sell or otherwise share data with third parties. Google uses it to decide who to show third-party ads to.

Get rid of your dictator and adopt a representative democracy and it will be over. Indeed, nobody could have thought it would go on this long.

I see you haven't followed this story at all. There is zero evidence that any of this data came from Google, and plenty of evidence that it did not. For that matter, look at some of the /. comments. Several posters found their e-mail addresses and passwords... and they were not passwords used on gmail.

I don't write for you or for anybody, I write for myself.

Free market capitalism gave us Viagra, sure.

It also gave us pretty much everything else, from factories to sewing machines, to refrigeration, to transport, to medicine, to housing, to clothing, to food, to entertainment and more.

The only people with short term thinking are found in government, but not only their thinking is linked to their election campaigns and is aimed at buying votes by generating class and racial and sexual (and actual) warfare, it is also the exact opposite of what the people actually need in real life.

A business on its own is a market participant that gives people what they want to generate profits for itself and if it fails to give people what people want it fails as there are losses, not profits.

A government on its own is not a market participant but a propagandist with a large and armed police and military forces, ready to murder and steal and lie in order to stay in power. Staying in power is antithetical to generating profits, since staying in power cannot be achieved by finding efficiencies and eliminating them or by actually eliminating any problems that governments pretend they are trying to solve.

Nobody in government got more power by solving any problems, but they certainly grow their power to worsening the situations, which then gives them an excuse to use violence and steal more and more in order to 'increase the fight' in those areas.

War on drugs doesn't solve the issue of drugs, but it sure grows government and worsens the actual situation for the people who use drugs or deal drugs or even simply participate in the economy where that war is taking place.

War on poverty doesn't solve the issue of poverty, this issue was being solved by the free market just fine when the government decided it will wage the war. The poverty only increased since then, more unemployment, the money is worthless, the economy is failing.

Governments may or may not have long term goals, however their goals have nothing to do with giving the people (market) what they actually want and need, that's what the private individuals do in the free market capitalist economy.

I am not writing it for you or for anybody, I am stating the obvious.

Since they both (Apple and the other fitness bands) require the phone to work, the answer is really yes, for all intents and purposes

By that line of reasoning, there's not much point in having a smartphone as you can get text messages on your vintage Nokia and check your email/facebook when you get home.

Uh... no... by my line of reasoning you already have to have your wristband and phone with you anyway, so it's not comparable at all.

Let your wife check messages/notifications in the rain while leaving her phone safely in her purse or pocket. Discretely check messages/notifications in a meeting without the rudeness of digging out her phone. Receive silent signals to turn left or right on a jog or bike ride from tactile feedback.

Granted, but what does that really have to do with fitness or overall capabilities? And why would someone pay hundreds of dollars of extras for being able to text in the rain instead of doing the smart thing and getting out of it? And are you saying your phone can't give you tactile feedback?

Even KlearGear's lawyer can't hide his scumminess from his public statements.

>> "Ironically, if Mr. Palmer [consumer] had simply approach[ed] Kleargear first last fall and requested a stay to finance their new furnace — we would have worked with him," Mathieu [shitty company's lawyer] wrote. "We are human beings. Instead he has chosen a public forum."

Yeah, and be sure to ask your mugger if he can hold off a minute, so you can buy your lunch before he steals your credit card.

What you're saying is, every small business has to do business with Yelp. They're the 1000 lb gorilla in this case, and Yelp itself has earned plenty of bad reviews from businesses forced to deal with them.

I have an LG G Watch, and I find that calendaring is one of the things I like the best. The watch doesn't show my me week, it just shows the appointments for today, with a countdown timer to the next appointment/meeting coming up. Being able to just glance at my watch to see how much time I have before my next meeting is awesome.

Other really convenient features on the watch: music/audio-book remote control (just tap my watch to pause/play, or swipe and tap to go forward or back), navigation (shows upcoming turn and ETA), text and e-mail notifications (can tap and reply verbally) and a more convenient way to use Google's voice search. My Moto X is pretty good at listening for me to say "OK Google", but I find I don't ever do that any more, just double-tap my watch face and tell my wrist "Call Kris", or "What time does Home Depot close?", etc.

All in all, I'm finding it very useful.

There are several options. One of them is to use SMS or voice as the channel for receiving one-time passwords. For that, you have to provide the phone number they should send the passwords to. Or you can use the Google Authenticator app, which doesn't require providing any information (though it's recommended to provide a phone number as a backup), or you can just get a list of static OTPs to print out and carry around. Most people use that last one as a backup, but I suppose you could use it as your primary 2FA.