mediajunk

Every time I complain about Google losing its integrity, it goes and does something admirable. This week, it posted its proposed "Software Principles," which can be summarised as follows:

• Software should not trick you into installing it.
• When an application is installed or enabled, it should inform you of its principal and significant functions.
• It should be easy for you to figure out how to disable or delete an application.
• If an application collects or transmits your personal information such as your address, you should know.
• Application providers should not allow their products to be bundled with applications that do not meet these guidelines.

Why, exactly, has Google posted these principles? To raise awareness? Possibly, but another guess is that it may, if it finds there is a large consensus out there, decide to penalise sites that peddle such software. In any case, Google is certainly raising its profile as the self-appointed police force of the web, particularly as it emerged recently (through an employee leak) that the company has an internal "ethics committee". On the subject of what such an ethics committee might talk about, the BBC have launched, eh, a discussion about their discussions. By the way, for the user who posted a comment recently asking how to shut down his Gmail account -- why not just sell or swap it? Wired magazine explains how...