Blog PostsActivist Judiciary Google
By Brian Small at Apr 30, 2009 |
|
Brewster Kahle of Archive.org on DemocracyNow!'s segment on Google and Libraries made me think of Noam Chomsky on how corporations became 'immortal [interminable] persons' gaining personhood through activist judges. He recommends Transformation of American Law, but that book is hard going.
BREWSTER KAHLE: I guess Congress can do anything. But since this is sort of coming in through the back door, through the judiciary, it's a little bit odd. There are people in the Justice Department that are starting to look at this. And I hope they take a close look at not only the monopoly of what Google is trying to make, but this price-setting organization called the Books Rights Registry is another sort of bizarre outcome of the secretly negotiated settlement that could determine the future of libraries.
I always had big warm fuzzies about google, programming mentors write stuff like 'remember, google is your friend' as advice on working out problems. A throwaway comment by usablity guru, Jakob Nielsen (who was[is?] on Google's technical advisory board), gets you to examine those fuzzies. The quote was caught up on Slashdot from Marketplace. (Japanese mention too, of 'Lucky Button')
But Nielsen, the Web usability expert, says the whimsy serves another business purpose.
NIELSEN: By loosening up their reputation, by sort of still maintaining this feeling of, "Oh we're just two kind of grad students hanging out and having a beer and having a grand old time," not you know, "We are 16,000 people working on undermining your privacy."
As Google continues to draw the attention of competitors, regulators and, yes, privacy advocates, showing that human face is one way to make the company appear less threatening. Google's pressing the the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, and hoping it'll bring them the exact result they want.
In Mountain View, California, I'm Brendan Newnam for Marketplace.
Archive.org is doing some impressive stuff - Brewster Kahle's efforts on maintaining accountability in a situation where the average life of a webpage is 100 days are commendable. It's not just google that 'remembers everything.'
BREWSTER KAHLE: We're archiving the whole World Wide Web. We take a snapshot every two months of every website of anywhere in the world, and we record all of the pages, so that you can be able to see the World Wide Web as it was. You could surf the web as it was. We have the out-of-print web pages.
The average life of a web page is about 100 days. So, if you wanted to see what it is some corporation or a government claimed before, if you go back to the website, it could be gone. And so, the Wayback Machine plays the role of a library in the digital realm to be able to make it so that accountability is there towards what it is people said in the past.
Google's Ethics vs Deliverables
By Falvo ii, Samuel at May 08, 2009 11:39 AM
Reply this comment
Google's Ethics vs Deliverables
By Falvo ii, Samuel at May 08, 2009 11:40 AM
G** D*** commenting system!! >:-( This is *SO* annoying...
Anyway...
I want to call into distinction two things: Google's Ethics, and Google's Deliverables.
Ethically, Google has worked to protect people's privacy repeatedly. They've failed in a number of instances, especially when pressured by China, but on the whole their reputation for defending a user's privacy is simply stellar when compared to any other company in existance. Does Microsoft protect your privacy? Hardly! They, like so many others, will be the first to sell your name and address on a mailing list to their affiliates.
Even so, I think it's right that people continue to question Google on their privacy policies. Continued observation by the public is a vital incentive for Google to remain in tip-top shape on privacy issues.
However, their Deliverables, namely search and highly targeted advertising, along with innovative products like GMail, #by their nature# imply possession of confidential data. Without Google, half the authors on this very site likely wouldn't be able to find nearly as many references to support their arguments. Without Google, leftist organizations likely would be utterly unaware of each other. And, yet, you get this incredibly valuable service completely free of charge!! The operations are funded by ad revenue, and I've yet to see one Google ad which was in any way so obnoxious that it distracted from the user experience.
If we lived in a libertarian capitalist society, you'd have to pay Google twice: first on a per-query basis, and second for each Google crawl of your website. This would eliminate the visibility of hundreds of millions of otherwise informative yet underfunded websites.
Keep these things in mind when debating Google's utility and privacy implications. Nothing in life comes for free, and in this economic system, actions seen as unethical to others become cold, hard necessities for survival. The fact that Google has had to resort to unethical behaviors as little as it has is actually a market anomaly, and is why everyone's picking on Google. With reduced frequency comes increased visibility. I don't see anyone picking on other companies, who often participate in the same kinds of behavior, but do so as a regular matter of course.
Reply this comment
Re: Google's Ethics vs Deliverables
By Small, Brian at May 21, 2009 00:51 AM
Hi Samuel, I didn't notice your comment until now. I wish I knew some way to keep track of any activity on my blog posts.
I use gmail and google all the time. I don't know how much we'd have to pay for the services or say wireless and/or broadband access in a more 'pareconnish' or social economy. Maybe, like roads and sidewalks and parks and sewers these services would be something we'd all deem worthy enough to foot the bill for. How much of the bill (for computers and the internet, the public infrastructure Google uses) have we already payed for with our taxes for all the research at the Pentagon and Universities?
I never thought about it before until I just read your comment.
Reply this comment