Wasn't Rap Genius already pretty well-known before they were accepted into YC? You could do a site that annotated sheet music for Polka tunes, or annotated cat pictures with more different cat pictures, and YC would still probably accept you if your traction looked like the first few years of RG's.
You'd be wrong. Ask second-time founders. While you don't repeat some of your past mistakes, the expectations get jacked up and the stakes are higher. It doesn't get easier.
This is a lesson in the power of language. The companies involved and their denials of knowledge of PRISM were not lies, but clearly they were making it easier for the government to extract data for surveillance, under an unnamed program with specific point people in each company who were only allowed to talk to the government and not talk to their CEOs about the extent in which the government was extracting data. It may go even deeper. We just don't know.
The thing that upsets me most is that I suspect nobody except for the whistleblower will take any real heat. I hope more will come forward with more details in the coming weeks, before the government makes an example of the whisteblower.
Will this incident change user behavior? I doubt it. We're too dependent on these companies to cut them off en masse.
I dunno, it sounds to me like the companies in question were being hit with a lot of government requests and they did the natural thing to take them seriously and make it easy for their employees to deal with: make an API for it and automate the parts of the process that can be automated.
It is inevitable they are going to be hit with requests for information, they could dig their heels in on some things but ultimately they legally have to provide some of the information requested. They could have implemented APIs without any idea of how the NSA structured or code named the technology internally on the NSA's side. And I'm sure Google, Facebook, et al implemented whatever they implemented with little knowledge of how other companies were complying or not.
What I imagine happened is that any company that took compliance seriously, likely for their own staff's benefit, as a side effect became a stronger asset to the NSA than companies like Twitter who resisted.
And lastly, I'm not saying any of this is good. It just seems extremely plausible and not part of a massive conspiracy to give the NSA access to as much data as possible.
Some things happen in secret but are not part of a conspiracy. Conspiracies require secrecy because they are unlawful or unethical. It is codified into law (which is public) that the US gov will make classified information requests like the ones presented to the companies in question. Automating the exchange of information that the government has announced will by law be exchanged is not a conspiracy even if the specifics of what information is exchanged and the mechanics of the exchange are a secret.
This data exchange is arguably both unlawful and unethical. Unlawful in that it's an illegal search under the 4th amendment to the constitution. Unethical in that it makes liars out of these companies when they claim their customers have a reasonable level of privacy.
What conceivable "probable cause" could justify data collection on the scale being discussed? Practices being "codified into law" (largely secret laws, being interpreted in secret ways) doesn't really let anyone off the hook here. Or it shouldn't, at any rate. (Congresscritters and presidents still have an oath of office that promises to defend the constitution, right?)
That is not the case according to the article. I understand how you could believe this is happening but specifically with the SV companies we have no evidence of it and even the Washington Post is backing down from some of their boldest claims (e.g. NSA had direct access).
Sending everyone's information to US intelligence is not one of those things; as opposed to a trade secret which is one of those things. It isn't something that other people would copy if they knew about it, it's something that people would get very angry and upset if they heard about.
Please, don't be that guy who plays word games and starts parsing words in ways that suit their agenda. It's pretty clear he meant conspiracy in the common way most people talk about conspiracies when it comes to this subject. As in conspiracy theories or any other kind of conspiracy with sinister motives. The "they're out to get us" kind of conspiracy. Please don't come back now and say "that's not the way I commonly use/see it used". We do this far too often on this site. We start nitpicking little things like the dictionary definitions of words when we don't agree with someone and it totally derails the discussion.
The OP makes a good point here. These companies aren't out to intentionally harm their own users. They are out to make money and that sometimes has some side effects we don't like. But it is also entirely possible that they really do care about their customers/users too. Sometimes I feel like most people somehow have this idea that all these big companies are evil and really are involved in some mass conspiracy to harm us somehow. I once ran a company. I think this is somewhat related to this sort of war between companies trying to extract as much money per customer and customers trying to extract as much value from companies at as little cost as possible. But that's a topic for another time.
All the OP was really getting at with the conspiracy remark, and OP please correct me if I'm wrong, is that whether or not they intentionally gave the government access to some or all of their data they didn't do so knowing or intending for it to be used the way it was. They were trying cover their ass by complying with certain laws and the authorities and this massive cluster fuck was an unexpected consequence of that.
This was a "they're out to get us" kind of conspiracy.
The NSA sought to expand its own power in secret though quasi-legal means with the help of a few powerful men in government and a lot of scared people in corporations. The conspiracy used leverage to force cooperation by companies. You don't have to be evil in order to do evil by cooperating with a conspiracy, even (especially!) one run by the government.
All that is required for evil to triumph is that good men - or good companies - do nothing.
If for something to be "a conspiracy" you require that EVERYBODY who helps the effort be consciously furthering the actual goals of the conspiracy, you've defined conspiracy in such a way that it is unlikely one could ever exist. In any actual plausible conspiracy there will always be unwitting dupes. There will always be people who've managed to convince themselves that they personally are doing good or that the organization is good even if the effects it produces don't turn out that way.
What exactly is being said, but more importantly what is not being said? Zuck's post was 169 words on one of the most important stories to break about privacy and tech companies.
Not necessarily. Almost all car manufacturers are anticipating this kind of transition and have back up plans already [1]. I bet Tesla will become what Apple is to smartphones and then the rest will gradually pace up and someday attain equilibrium (or even overshoot) with Tesla's roadmap.
For example, a lot of manufacturers are already developing electric vehicles for masses, just that they don't want to get their feet wet and they want someone else to do it first , so they can just jump in and join them if the market is actually ripe.
Mass adoption of electric vehicles is what most manufacturers fear and which is a valid concern, which is why Tesla's move is particularly so important.
Automotive industry is one industry where nobody is 'too late' for the party. As of now, I personally want to see Tesla succeed.
[1]Nissan, Toyota, Mistubishi, Chevrolet, Hyundai, BMW, Audi, etc. all have EV's in their roadmaps, some are budget EV's too.
Apple managed to maintain their strong lead for a relatively long time by creating the app ecosystem.
Tesla could do the same with their supercharger network, where they offer free charging. Although I think (and hope) that eventually they'll let other car manufacturers "license" access to Tesla's network, and this way they'll be able to not only pay for the maintenance and cost of the network, but also make a bit of money from it, too. They shouldn't charge too much, though. Maybe $100 per car.
By turning the network into an actual business and not just a "cost", they would have to incentive and capital to expand the network all over the world as fast as possible.
And that's how we all get free charging for all cars, forever. Goodbye oil industry.
Agreed. But 'Goodbye oil industry' will never happen in the near future. Not with the level of corruption with the top dogs right now. They'll do everything they can to suppress the viable alternatives. They'll buy out the media, pay the right guys to write stories about how unreliable and dangerous these EV's are and why oil based transport is still the best, and so on.
And co-incidentally, I am reminded of the Tesla-BBC fiasco...[1]
What you hate or like is your personal prerogative. But when you are addressing a public audience, who have faith in you and your brand and trust you, you are morally obliged to be factually correct and not let personal opinions distort the facts. If you read that article, Tesla claims that they forged a scene as if the car just stopped randomly which is highly unlikely when there is enough charge (I am with Elon Musk on this one).
(You doesn't literally mean you, but BBC in this case)
Clarkson is not a news reporter. He's an entertainer. He is expected to be controversial and opinionated, and - depending on your viewpoint - quite delusional.
If he started being objective and serious, the show would be cancelled. As it in fact was before he pitched the new, less serious, format and convinced the BBC to relaunch the show.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the oil industry is far from just being gasoline and diesel.
Tesla will have to move down market, that will seriously restrict their profit per car. Where they are now with the S is in a price range which is less than twelve percent of the market but provides the majority of many automakers yearly profits. Get down to that below 40k mark and they are going to be in the same boat with everyone else. I doubt we will see a sub 40k car from them for years.
The legacy automakers all seem to think 100 miles on a charge is good enough; of them, only Nissan seems to be trying to do much more than build the minimum number to comply with California regulations.
The sales figures of Leaf vs Tesla seem to suggest that people bought the Leaf when the Model S wasn't yet available and the Leaf was the best EV available, and largely lost interest after that.
It seems entirely possible that the legacy automakers' EV plans could turn out to be too little, too late.
Tesla becoming the Apple of vehicles would be a worse case scenario for the other manufacturers considering that Apple assumes the (vast?) majority of profits.
Which is...good and will force them to innovate better, no? Case in point - Samsung was nobody a few years back, though they were very much popular as a 'budget' phone maker. But look at Samsung today, they make phones much better than even Apple's iPhone (though this is subjective) in terms of features, performance, etc. But what forced Samsung to become what they are today? Pressure from its competitors.
Competition is always good....(until they start suing each other).
You were trying to link that automakers might not be scared because Tesla might "only" become the Apple of cars (I guess implying that less marketshare is not scary). But Apple's "small" marketshare enables it to reap most of the industry's profits which is far scarier to competitors.
Agreed, and expect the old guard to lobby more states than SC to put in rules that will severely hamper Tesla (by requiring them to open dealerships everywhere). (I realize SC hasn't voted it into law yet, but there is noise there about it.)
I don't think Instagram/Systrom had any intention to sell user photos or do anything as drastic as the blogosphere made its TOS changes sound.
It did the right thing responding so quickly to user feedback. Hopefully it'll result in a TOS that lets Instagram monetize without infringing on the privacy of its users.
> Hopefully it'll result in a TOS that lets Instagram monetize without infringing on the privacy of its users.
And maybe just maybe they will review further TOS changes before unleashing them. If these terms were really against Instagram's plans, it's almost even more pathetic.
I agree. There is a lot of attention paid to TOS changes lately. How could they not see that this would come with heavy backlash? I know he keeps saying "not our intention" in that post, but intentions don't amount to anything if the TOS clearly gives them carte blanche with your photos. Just some really bad public relations going on there.
After reading some of the TOS changes and this blog post it really seems like a case of overzealous lawyering - trying to cover Instagram for all possible uses of the photos.
I'd like to see a site/service along the lines of http://www.tldrlegal.com/ but which crowdfunded some decent lawyers to review the ToS, privacy policy, etc of popular sites (determined by user votes) and provided a list of potentially objectionable statements.
Not as Proper Noun Legal Advice, but more as a set of things which might be a concern, and you should have your own qualified legal counsel examine in detail if desired)
I can think of all sorts of problems though; malpractice, negligence, copyright infringement of ToS, libel for misinterpretations, and many more besides. Maybe that's why it doesn't (can't?) exist.
The legal text, i.e., the announced new ToS, remain relevant, in particular since the ToS rule out suing Instagram (you have to revert to arbitration). I therefore see today's announcement as an important first step but an amendment to the announced new ToS has to follow suit if Instagram really takes this matter serious from a legal perspective.
The blogosphere will always make things sound worse than they are. But was it really that exaggerated this time. I don't think there intentions were as bad as it came off, but they made a huge mistake. There response was honestly not all that fast considering the instant shit storm this caused. If a million users complain about something immediately after it hits the feeds, and it takes them literally hours to say much of anything about it, there's an issue. The apology was not heartfelt, it wasn't sincere, and came off far more like like, "we're sorry you didn't understand."
I think instagram/facebook should be able to monetize, but I think today marks a gigantic mistake in their history, they went down in myspace fashion. Users dropping like flies, the amount of traffic on services like instaport.me and http://freethephotos.com/ is phenemonal.
