Mozilla Director Says Switch to Bing After Google CEO Dismisses Privacy

Mozilla's Director of Community Development Asa Dotzler has recommended switching to Bing after Google's CEO Eric Schmidt dismissed the importance of privacy on the Internet.

Dotzler even provided a link to change the default Firefox search engine to Bing.


When asked during an interview by CNBC whether users should be sharing information with Google, Schmidt responded, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines - including Google - do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."

The Electronic Frontier Foundations had this to say, "Schmidt's statement makes it seem as if Google, a company that claims to care about privacy, is not even concerned enough to understand basic lessons about privacy and why it's important on so many levels -- from protection against shallow embarrassments to the preservation of freedom and human rights."

Gawker points out the personal hypocrisy of Schmidt noting that for about a year, Schmidt blacklisted CNET reporters from Google after the tech news company published an article with information about his salary, neighborhood, hobbies, and political donations -- all obtained from Google searches.

Techdirt notes that Schmidt's viewpoint is painfully similar to pro-surveillance advocates that incorrectly presume that privacy's only function is to obscure lawbreaking: "If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to worry about."


Take a look at the video below and let us know what you think in the comments. Is Google finally turning into that big brother corporation that everybody was worried about?

[EFF] [Gawker] [Techdirt]