[Stormbringer]

"I've been a Google fanboi for years and defended them in the public square when they've been accused of nefariousness. But these revelations of intentionally ignoring users' privacy settings have shaken me. Maybe it's time to put them into the Facebook category, where I removed my account years ago."

Okay, wait. There's multiple problems here.

The first one is this: that you are only now objecting, and not upset at all about Google handing over dissidents to the Chinese govt to torture and/or kill.

Human fucking life fucking has no fucking value to you? Priorities???

Secondly, they haven't been accussed of nefariousness, they have been caught red-handed, bald faced lied about it in public, only back-pedalled when presented with irrefutable evidence, and then convicted in court. Now, you can try to spin that as "accused", but you're going to need to set the spin cycle longer than normal, because that doesn't wash (sic) with the rest of the world.

Lastly, the problem with replacing Google is finding a good replacement. Bing is useless. The only thing close to gmail for free email (and it's barely in the same ballpark) is yahoo.

[kylemaxwell]

Please don't make assumptions about what I've said in the past. I've been very vocal about their involvement in China, including emailing them, blogging, and telling everyone I know about it. However, since they changed their handling of China, I thought it wasn't relevant to this particular discussion.

I agree with your intensity, though perhaps not its specific mode of expression.

[batista]

The first one is this: that you are only now objecting, and not upset at all about Google handing over dissidents to the Chinese govt to torture and/or kill. Human fucking life fucking has no fucking value to you? Priorities???

How is that different from Google/ISPs handling over persons of interest to any other government, including yours? Or you think what is allowed in that case shouldn't be allowed for China's case? Are dissidents of China better than dissidents of any other country, to deserve special treatment?