Or Google employee going nuts and remotely killing all the people in the car.

So why the hell do we allow Google to release non-working beta software on the internet? Why do we allow them to blatantly violate our privacy and sell our information to advertisers? It's time for the government(s) to step in and do something about them. Google needs to be shutdown, or at least they need to be made to change their blatantly obvious and abusive business. And if they refuse, the CEO's and higher level people need to be put for jail for their violations. Just like we need to revamp the banking industry and held people responsible for their abusive practices.

What does it matter that Oracle was part of creating it open source? Open source is only that - you get the source. There is no other promises, and no way in hell is there any promise not to even charge for it.

I don't think "don't use the internet" is a reasonable suggestion just if you want to avoid Google's spying. And aside from how stupid suggestion that is, it doesn't just include internet anymore. Google is driving around the world and photographing everyones life with their cars. They want people to wear Google Goggles which will give your data to Google. You cannot anymore escape Google by just not using their services. Even if you don't use them, someone else will make data about you available to Google. We need to regulate these things before it gets out of hand. And in fact many countries with stricter privacy laws have (like most of Europe), but Google just ignores them and pay the fines they might get. They know they will eventually make much more money by openly abusing now so they can establish it all.

With Google's insistence to label pretty much all of their projects as "beta" to avoid liability, I think this is a very dangerous project. We are not talking about something like email hosting or fun things like YouTube here - we are talking about vehicles that can, and do kill people. Not only people inside the car, but other people too.

On top of this we can think about Google's history of privacy violations. It's obvious they are trying to gain something from this and with their style and business practices, it probably means something that outright violates your and everyone else's privacy. I was already shocked when I read about Google Goggles and the way the device works. It doesn't process the image on the device itself but instead sends it to Google's servers. Combined with Google's facial recognition technology and patent, Google Goggles will give the company outstanding amount of living world and meatspace data.

Now I can only guess that Google is trying to expand their privacy violations to roads, driving habits and your everyday life.

The issue isn't about not using Google's services. Google should not be allowed to break laws and abuse everyone else.

What most slashdotters seem to forget about this case is that every other company on planet licenses Java from Oracle (and did from Sun when they owned it). Microsoft does, Apple does, Samsung does, Nokia does and so on. However, Google tried to use their image and countless amount of lawyers to get around this so that they would not need to pay for the work that Sun/Oracle have done with Java. They took their changes to avoid the fees and lost. It's not a new tactic to Google, as they have it with scanning copyrighted books and setting up the worlds largest piracy site YouTube. This time they just got bitten. I don't it will be the last time either, as people are starting to catch up on Google's nefarious practices.