It seems like most of the commenters here are treating the evidence of Google's wrongdoing as conclusive. It isn't. A comment on the post by Richard Wooding demonstrated how Joe Random can make requests from a Google IP address:
Yes, but I don't think they can spin it as a "rogue team" really. If it is a team inside Google. That's Google's fault. It doesn't matter whether it's Google's fault because they have poor oversight or too much freedom or because they hire people who are criminal.
No, some regular person at Google behaved unethically. If Google locked down their employees enough to prevent this (which I doubt is even possible), then they wouldn't be able to do anything good either. You're saying: one mistake in a tiny branch office, entire global company goes out of business.
> " You're saying: one mistake in a tiny branch office, entire global company goes out of business."
I don't see that anywhere in the posts above.
I can't speak for other posters, but the price of letting your employees have the freedom to act according to their own initiative is that sometimes, people will fuck up, and the damage may not just be contained to your own company.
Of course, giving employees freedom also means more innovation, fast progress, and generally more happiness.
So the idea is that Google can't just reap the benefits of high-employee-freedom, they also need to bear the responsibilities for the inevitable damage it causes. These employees, acting on behalf of Google, did something bad, and caused real, quantifiable damage to another business - Google needs to take responsibility for this, and I don't just mean a mea culpa on a blog.
>You're saying: one mistake in a tiny branch office, entire global company goes out of business.
Nope I'm trying to temper your outlandish general statements; and failing.
napierzaza said, roughly, it was Googles fault if they hired criminals and those people were acting criminally either through lack of oversight or otherwise. You said something along the lines of it being expected that Google would commit crimes and that this is merely the cost of innovation. I asked if Google inc. acting criminally bothered you and you appeared to answer that it didn't that it was impossible for them to do good without also committing 'evil'.
TBH I can't really believe anyone who values the rule of law (particular its equal application) could countenance such a position. So, do you believe that rich corporations should be immune from the laws that bind the rest of us?
Hypothetical: If an employee in McDonald's overcharges all the customers do you think that McDonald's/the franchisee is completely devoid of responsibility because it was "just an employee"?
You know, up until this comment of yours, it hadn't bothered me that you were an employee of google defending their actions most of the time on HN. I still assumed you were being somewhat objective.
But I have finally lost that trust. It is extremely hard to believe your objectivity when you equate what happened with "pushing the envelope" and "innovation".