Google does not sell user data, except in the form of aggregated, anonymized statistics. Google's major profits are made by using user data internally to target ads, but without giving user data to advertisers. It all stays in-house -- and Google is very careful about keeping it secure against intrusions, leaks and even access by employees.

This is why the government request stories are so damaging to Google.

Google's "deal" with its users is that Google collects and uses information from searches, e-mails, etc., in order to figure out what ads to show the users. The users get high-quality free services, including "better" ads -- hardly anyone likes ads, but most everyone would prefer that if they have to see ads that the ads be for products which interest them. Advertisers get cost-effective advertising, since they only pay when someone actually clicks their ad, which means they only pay for good leads. Google, of course, gets money from the advertisers. The more information Google has about users, the better it can target the ads, which means the more ads are clicked.

As long as Google does a good job of ensuring that user data is only used in that way, most people consider it to be a reasonable trade. That trade depends on Google doing a good job of keeping user data tightly controlled, and I think most people have the perception that Google can and does do a good job of keeping their private data private. But if some external entity has carte blanche to rummage through the data at will, then the balance of value changes, because the risk to users is greater.

We grant government permission to do that sort of rummaging for good reasons, but generally don't give carte blanche. Government should only be able to request specific information about specific individuals when it has proven to a skeptical magistrate that it has good reason. That's the theory. But the telcos have, apparently, been giving free rein to federal agencies, and now we have this allegation that Google does, too. Or that government has been legally compelling Google to provide open access, which amounts to the same thing.

Google wants to be able to prove that it has not been providing open access, but government gag orders prevent that. This means that those government gag orders are materially damaging Google's business, because it doesn't matter how good Google is at safeguarding the user data it possesses, if everyone figures that government agencies have wide-open backdoors.

(Disclaimer: I work for Google. I don't, however, speak for Google and they don't speak for me.)

Must be nice to live in a fantasy world where completely innocent people never get prosecuted. Not having done anything wrong definitely helps, but it's no guarantee. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

If you're in a position to be a witness, great! Be a good one. But first get your attorney involved. Your attorney will help you decide if it's safe to have a conversation with the police (unlikely), or whether you should just provide a signed statement, or whether you should negotiate a qualified immunity before talking. Yes, this means that doing you part for society will cost you more time and money than just talking... but it could also cost you far, far less than if you talked and got yourself in trouble.

Volume is a well defined market term. It is entirely independent from price. Please don't make things up.

Because if it were not for companies like cogent Verizon/AT&T would still be charging 200 a megabit and making it seem like a deal.

The short-termism here is the market speaking.

Yes, the market. Not society, and not real investors. We've permitted a market to develop that doesn't value real world results or true economy, only what money can be sucked out of it. Even if we need a market, we don't need one of this shape. If it's a necessary evil, then let's minimize the evil and maximize the good.

Thank you for proving that reading comprehension isn't entirely dead on the Internet. I was losing hope.

People conflate "rich people" with "anything that happens on the stock market". And any tax introduced will grow over time, and never go away.

Context. You need to read context. Here, I'll help:

Followed by more banter.

Based on the context, we're not discussing the 0.03% tax that the main article is talking about. We're jabbering about StripedCow's idea of taxing volume.

Please enjoy your +5 informative. It was given to you by mods who also did not follow context.

Uh, thanks. But I've seen a number of true idiots with lower IDs, so it doesn't say much. ;-)

Yeah, but Slashdot is optimized for sweeping generalizations. If you get too specific, then there are a near infinite number of people available to nit-pick, most of them of marginal intelligence. (Granted, there are a few real geniuses here.) Besides, this way all of us get to pretend to be experts at everything.

Yeah, but I'm not just parroting. I actually believe it. Whenever I hear "the economy" instead of "the stock market", I cringe. Companies make hiring, layoff, product development, supply logistics, and production plans (just to name a few) based on "the economy", meaning the stock market. They don't do so arbitrarily. It actually affects them, either directly, or through anticipation of competitors/suppliers/distributors reactions.

Things actually got worse when ETFs were introduced, tying the market closer together in artificial ways. Pull up any high volume stock and compare it to an ETF that tracks DOW Jones or S&P. Don't tell me that healthy markets do that.

And it's not just the stock market. For instance, the derivatives markets provided the environment (petri-dish) for the housing market bubble and bust. It would NOT have happened otherwise. Derivatives aren't inherently bad, but they provide an efficient way to tie things together that ought not move together. They make economies more complicated, and introduce systemic risk.

I disagree. Economies adapt to the markets they have available to them. They are shaped by these markets. People optimize their actions based on costs and tradeoffs... but these in turn are often molded directly by the shape of the market, and not just the actions of other market participants.

Our markets aren't perfect, but if you started from scratch to devise a way for people to buy and sell fractional ownership of the enterprises that humans naturally create in order to efficiently meet consumer demands, you'd end up with something pretty similar to what we have now.

Ah, no. If most people were to start from scratch, it would eventually look much like what we've got now. I challenge the very notion of otherwise-uninvolved third parties owning stock in joint ventures under most conditions. Workers have no ownership of their work, and "owners" (stock holders) have no feel for their company, being wholly separated from the creation of their products and services. This doesn't lead to a better economy.

I'm still undecided about the bond market, but that's easier to defend than the stock market, I think.

And free markets have immense social value.

That's a particular brand of laced cool-aid that I won't partake of. It's optimized for the particular variation of capitalism that we've become fixated upon. We're so stuck on what is, that we will not try anything else, and cannot find anything better. Yes, it seems better than anything that's been tried, but we really haven't tried all that many types of capitalism.

Can you at least admit that the "financial sector" shouldn't be included in GDP? It is money that is sucked out of the economy... arguably (debatably) while "helping" other sectors maximize their efficiency.

They have lifted far more people out of poverty than any wealth-redistribution effort ever has.

As you go on to imply... that's not saying much.

HFT is not speculation. It is the exact opposite. HFTers are market makers, not speculators.

You're half-wrong here. Market makers like to be as quick as possible. There's nothing wrong with that. There are far too many non-market makers doing HFT speculatively. That is what's causing problems. Even market makers are participating in split second speculation activities, compounding the issue.

I don't like HFT. It makes me very uneasy. I don't believe it adds a net social value to the system. It adds liquidity at the cost of obscuring real price discovery, and causes bizarre, sometimes dangerous price movements. And yes, I do understand the difference between bids and asks.

I don't see any mention of a pico cell as part of them. Lost power and cell service power for 7 days not an issue backup generators kicked in no issue after 24 hours internet and cell service went down as there batteries quick and there were not enough generators to go around. AT&T had 4 boxes on 4 adjacent poles and a generator required for each. Comcast had a box but no generator less than a dozen poles up from there head end. As far as phone and data the move from central head end to stuff on poles has greatly reduced the reliability in a greater than 24 hour widespread outage. I'm a network engineer I know some of these must exist but the trend is to put anything you can in them to reduce requirements in the head end/CO data-center or pulling copper all the way out to new subdivisions..

You do realize you're trying to compare deliberate acts of negligence to a happenstance predating modern ownership of that land... So, disregarding that "question" is really a shotgun of questions trying to get whatever response you're after, let's dig in! Yes, yes, not sure if that one's a question, yes, again not sure what the question is, yes but as the new owner I'd have legal recourse to sue you for damages in court, now you're just repeating that one movie with that one chick, you do.

Now, if you happened up on a mammoth tusk and the government demanded you dig it out to give to a museum at your own expense... I think I'd have a different answer.

Any further questions?

It could replace the mouse. Not the keyboard.
Still for fast typing you need a good feel on what is going on.