The public and the media has a paranoid fascination with Murdoch while letting bigger and more problematic 'fish' off the hook. While the phone hacking scandal was reprehensible, Google stole millions of our wi-fi passwords and took photos of where we live without our consent. Yet the media and the public see them as harmless fun guys of the new age of computing and almost immune from substantial criticism.

Our fantasies about citizen Murdoch are out of control while we have blinkers on about organisations such as Google which have much greater potential to change our lives for the worse and continue to steal our private information with few barriers or laws to stop them.

I think the joke of the century is Rupert sitting there, calmly telling the world that he has never allowed his commercial interests to clash with his editorial policies!

The only lie bigger than that is telling children that Santa is real or claiming there is life after death!

Dangerous Creation .com

Atman: Google's Street-view photos can be obscured by request and the WiFi scan that enables better location features. No actual data was sniffed, just enough to ID the area to enable more accurate location without GPS.
I think you will find that most objections come from the likes of Microsoft who like to charge $ for what Google gives away for free. Profiteers *hate* people who give away better products than they charge for!
You are comparing this to a man who controls most of the media, allows the most heinous breaches of privacy and is frightfully politically active.
His role in the lead-up to Iraq was far from balanced, and his impact on politicians is very unhealthy for democracy. Murdoch has corrupted the bidding process for a national broadcaster in the UK and is clearly after Gillard's scalp in Australia. (I'd forgive more if he had treated Howard the same)
Google has provided many many useful products for free and have progressed the internet and freedoms for millions....Murdoch has attempted to control information and direct the political fate of at least 3 countries. Google may well have saved lives...Murdoch may well have costed many in his support for wars and regressive economics. Google more evil than Murdoch? Absurd!

'You are comparing this to a man who controls most of the media, allows the most heinous breaches of privacy and is frightfully politically active. '

I seem to remember him saying how Mr Rudd would be a good PM. Oh well his judgements can't always be right. How wrong he was on that occasion.

runner: I agree. Rudd looked OK until he was asked to lead...then his inability to work with others was exposed.
Murdoch is a very very clever man so he probably wanted a leader who was easily manipulated...either to his designs or to discredit Labour. (Another Latham would be bad for ALP!)
Regardless of political incumbents, the mainstream media is too important to leave to an extreme individual with dodgy ethics.

I agree with Ozandy. I don't recall any example or slightest hint of a rumour, where Google has tried its hand at regime change. Moreover, Google seems to respect our right to privacy, whereas, the Murdoch empire has an extensive history of repeated breaches of inviolate personal privacy.
Fortunately, it has NEVER EVER happened here. NEVER EVER?
As for the mutual admiration society/love in, between multi millionaire Rupert and multi millionaire fiscal conservative 07 Kevin, well it could be just a case of birds of a feather or like attracting like?
I simply don't believe any scaremongering scuttlebutt; that paints either man as a pathological liar or power hungry corporate psychopath. [One can live in the hope that they bury them; but only after they die, in graves at least 10 feet deep; because deep deep down; they are really nice people?]
Even so and back on topic, one can expect that the enquiry, will usher in new media laws, which dilute the power and media possessions of all our power hungry or meddling media moguls; and or, seriously beef up our inviolable personal privacy, if only to better protect us and our humble possessions/bank accounts/real estate etc; from ever growing identity theft! Rhrosty.

Rhrosty and Ozandy. Can't agree with your statements about Google's relative innocence compared with Murdoch's guilt. There are court cases at the moment because Google stole information from peoples unprotected WIFI net works as they did their street view scan.

Rhrosty your comment that "Google seems to have respected our right to privacy" is way off. There are numerous court cases showing the very opposite.

OZAndy No, youre not right. Google DID take private information even to the point of recording the website people were using at the time.

Google have way more power to control what people see and read than Murdoch. Lets just get it in perspective. Murdoch's organisation invaded the privacy of a few, Google invaded the privacy of millions.