Mozilla Director Derides Google, Promotes Bing

By Jane McEntegart
published

A Director at the Mozilla Foundation praised Microsoft's Bing and says the decision making engine offers more in terms of privacy than Google.

A lot of people recoiled when Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the folks at CNBC, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Schmidt continued on to state that in the United States we are all subject to the Patriot Act and it is possible that information stored could be made available to the authorities. However, many people (including some of us here in the "office") had a problem with Schmidt's comment.

Among the troubled is Asa Dotzler, Director of Community Development at Mozilla. Dotzler yesterday highlighted Schmidt's comments in his personal blog, warning readers, "That was Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, telling you exactly what he thinks about your privacy." Dotzler assured readers that the block quote he had included in his short blog post was not taken out of context and encouraged users to watch the video themselves before switching Firefox's search engine from Google to Bing. "Yes, Bing does have a better privacy policy than Google."

Interestingly enough, as Valley Wag points out, it was Schmidt who blacklisted CNet reporters for a full year because of a story highlighting privacy concerns. The story shared several nuggets of information about Schmidt that CNet had gleaned from Google searches. These included salary, neighborhood, hobbies and political donations.

Check out the video of Eric Schmidt on CNBC below.

Jane McEntegart
34 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Does this mean that the next FireFox update will have Bing as the Home Page?
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  • pooflinger1
    Interesting. Mozilla condemns Microsoft on one hand for its inclusion of IE with Windows, and now they go just short of praising them for their efforts in protecting your privacy. Perhaps Mozilla is just telling it how it is, or perhaps there's a behind the scenes motive.... Perhaps Google Chrome is threat than IE and this is their way of combating that threat.
    Reply
  • wildwell
    Renegade_WarriorDoes this mean that the next FireFox update will have Bing as the Home Page?I was think that exact same thing.
    Reply
  • cryogenic
    Google search engine: keeps records about you!
    Other search engines: don't keep records.

    Is your online privacy important? For me, not really, I don't do things that I'm shouldn't do in the first place, but I still feel uncomfortable with Google's politics.

    Let's say I follow some links on some political blogs, and do some research to debate some sensitive topics, then I accidentally open some legally ambiguous sites. Does that mean the authorities could knock on my door just by looking at some Google logs, without having any context information on how I ended up on those sites ? I doubt this will ever happen to me, but someone innocent will get screwed sooner or later ... As for those that are suspected by authorities, they deserve to be tracked, but I don't see the point in tracking "everyone" online.



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  • His answer seemed truthful and as if it applied to all companies operating in the U.S. So am I missing something or should he simply have been more political and lied?
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  • SAL-e
    BeschHis answer seemed truthful and as if it applied to all companies operating in the U.S. So am I missing something or should he simply have been more political and lied?Agree. Just because Bing has better written policy does not mean that if Feds knock on their doors they will not help them track you. Just like AT&T and Verizon assisted US government in warrant-less spying on all Americans. When people try to sue them they got nice protection from Washington by law that granted them an immunity.
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  • Vestin
    BeschHis answer seemed truthful and as if it applied to all companies operating in the U.S. So am I missing something or should he simply have been more political and lied?AFAIK - you're right. He simply stated the unpleasant (for some) truth. Maybe he hasn't stressed enough that your information will be ONLY shared with the authorities and ONLY when you commit a crime. As such - I don't see it as a big deal. If you commit a crime IRL, you don't usually expect people to simply pretend nothing happened, right ?

    tl;dr: I trust Google.
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  • Vestin
    It just occurred to me - since today, Chrome has its own ADBlock or two... This was probably the only thing that made me hesitate to switch from Firefox.
    Perhaps the guys and gals at Mozilla are simply afraid that people might be curious enough to switch to Chrome with extensions... and never come back ]:> ?
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  • deathblooms2k1
    I don't see how this is anything new. Googles cost of free is they own your information and can do what the please with it. They don't deny this it's written clearly in their policy's.
    Reply
  • sunflier
    I like Google as a search engine (who doesn't?).

    But I despise Google bigwig policies and intrusive measures.

    "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
    BS!! I bet he wouldn't be saying that if it were him or his family.
    Reply