Google made a blog post earlier today that gives the phrase ‘sour grapes’ new meaning. In it - it makes an unseemly, laughable, even worse - a hypocritical attempt to re-frame an issue that’s clearly going to cost them in the near future. 

The post, made by chief legal officer David Drummond, sounds like that whiny little kid in the class who gets caught stealing and then cries foul when confronted. I was going to do a point by point rebuttal but someone already did a great job calling them out.

Google is a great company that does a lot of important, cool stuff but I wish they’d just grow the f-ck up.

Google’s Business Model: YOU Are the Product

Google makes billions of dollars in revenue each fiscal quarter. That money comes about by the same process that all companies use: They sell a product to their customers. Their customers pay money for that product.

Who’s Google’s customer? You? Really? When’s the last time you paid Google for anything?

Advertisers are Google’s customer. What do they sell to advertisers? They sell you. Or, at least, they rent you out, or provide access to you.

david: There’s a lot about Google Apps that wears me down, but this was nauseating. This is half the form I had to fill out to report a security vulnerability. In addition to two PIN numbers, the complete form has two required textareas to describe your issue: “Describe your issue” and “Please describe what this issue is regarding”. There was no field to upload screenshots. After submitting, the next screen simply read: “Thank you for contacting us.” This is service we’re paying thousands for. I’d say Google is the new Microsoft, but last time I called Microsoft (for Xbox support) a friendly woman answered and transfered me to someone who resolved my issue immediately. For years, it’s been a point of great frustration for me to see just how much misconception is out there when it comes to these two companies: both in public and more so in ‘tech industry’. It’s quite maddening actually. I’m glad that some in the industry are slowly but surely starting to catching up to the reality. Still a long way to go, but it’s a start. 

david:

There’s a lot about Google Apps that wears me down, but this was nauseating. This is half the form I had to fill out to report a security vulnerability.

In addition to two PIN numbers, the complete form has two required textareas to describe your issue: “Describe your issue” and “Please describe what this issue is regarding”. There was no field to upload screenshots.

After submitting, the next screen simply read: “Thank you for contacting us.”

This is service we’re paying thousands for.

I’d say Google is the new Microsoft, but last time I called Microsoft (for Xbox support) a friendly woman answered and transfered me to someone who resolved my issue immediately.

For years, it’s been a point of great frustration for me to see just how much misconception is out there when it comes to these two companies: both in public and more so in ‘tech industry’. It’s quite maddening actually. I’m glad that some in the industry are slowly but surely starting to catching up to the reality. Still a long way to go, but it’s a start. 

I had no choice but to turn it into a gif.

I had no choice but to turn it into a gif.

If I can sit through the first 14 mins of Up by myself in a dark theater without crying and only (?) a lump in my throat - I can sit through this little ad from Google - however poignant and sigh-inducing.