mostly research stuff
you know what? sergio and barry’s “don’t be evil” mantra is really starting to rub me the wrong way…as if it’s not enough that these guys won’t take ads for guns and liquor and porn - yet will conduct an interview to be found between the vaginas and liquor ads with playboy (btw, that’s a great way to get women to come to work for elGoog - send them a message that you support the objectification of women! very clever!)….but this thing…this is a whole new layer of responsibility to explore: according to multiple sources, elGoog’s popular orkut social networking service has been used by drug dealers to facilitate sales…
“Brazilian police arrested 10 people on Thursday accused of selling drugs using Google’s international social networking site Orkut, which is hugely popular in the Latin American country…”We discovered the drug ring first via authorized phone tapping, and later the investigation included monitoring of their activities on the Internet,” said a duty officer at the Drugs Enforcement Service in the city of Niteroi, just across the bay from Rio de Janeiro….”We’ve nabbed 10 so far, but there may be more,” he added. The ring distributed mainly ecstasy and marijuana…Several million Brazilians have become devotees of Orkut (http://www.orkut.com) since Web search leader Google Inc. launched the popular social-networking site in January 2004. They make up more than half of Orkut’s 7 million plus members.”
…can you say, “yikes! we kinda fucked up!”? sure, i knew that you could guys…here’s a company that’s morphed from a web site selling ads to a maybe-one-day microsoft-wannabe, yet they lack the elegance of imagination to see clearly how the actions they take today in their temerarious pursuit of growth will generate the very growth defects that lead to back problems and chronic headaches when they grow up…
btw, if you’re like “orkut? is that an herb?” then just think of friendster, but made by elGoog with stolen code...orkut is “an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends” - for example, using the drug dealers as a reference point, benedict arnold would have really loved this site (he coulda formed a ‘west point’ group - and then invite british friends!)…
this blog is mostly safe for work, though i sometimes throw around a 'fuck' or two. you'll find a bunch of my articles from CI Magazine, SCIP online, other research pieces and some other crap. enjoy. there's lost of content here related to getting information about, around, from and through people and organizations...
Andrew Hitchcock
August 1st, 2005 at 2:13 am
Wow, you really hate Google don’t you? I’ve read a few of your posts and they all see like flames. I don’t think Google is perfect, but why is it there fault people use Orkut to manage drug deals? That’s like saying AOL is responsible when people do it over AIM. I wonder why Google links to you from their blog.
David Carpe
August 1st, 2005 at 2:04 pm
no, i don’t hate elGoog, i just try to provide some (harsh) outsider opinions without even pretending to blow sunshine up their ass - probably the very reason they link to me from their corporate blog (same for the yahoo corporate blog, not sure if you’ve noticed that one either)
and they are certainly not the first to enable this kind of problem…the oldest stuff that comes to mind is the first generation of free webmail accounts that prompted lawyers to request registration records from the major providers (including yahoo and others)
Andrew Hitchcock
October 20th, 2005 at 4:02 am
Yeah, sorry. After thinking about it later, I realized why they would link to you. I agree that criticism is good, but I still feel this isn’t Google’s fault.