Web freedom is at serious risk. And Google's Sergey Brin knows just who to blame.
In a discussion with the Guardian, Brin said he's more worried than ever about the future of openness on the Web, and he pointed fingers at several entities putting freedom at risk. Repressive regimes, for example. The US government. Facebook and Apple.
As the Guardian points out about Brin's comments:
The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, he claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry's attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of "restrictive" walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms.
Brin has some points here, and there's no doubt that the open Web is in danger on multiple fronts. But it's troubling that this warning is coming from Google -- the same Google that is seeking control of every Web process one can think of. (The same Google with this person as its chairman...)
Google, while still strong, has a lot to lose in the battle for the future of the Web. Facebook and Apple are natural competitors and digital thorns in its side. Controlled access hinders Google's ability to do successful business in places like China. Piracy crackdowns would seriously harm Google's ability to host content.
Now, please don't mistake my comments for those uttered by Cary Sherman, the RIAA chairman, who accused Google, Wikipedia, and basically everyone except SOPA supporters of tricking Web users into opposing that lethal legislation. Google et al didn't misinform us that SOPA was bad and dangerous news. Those companies were right and played an important part in January to put a stop to destructive legislation that the average Web user may not have otherwise known about.
What is concerning, though, is that it's clear Google sees an opportunity now to ride that wave and turn it in its own favor. It's not just SOPA that was bad, it's all things that don't jive with Google's business strategy (which, these days, seems to be "take over everything"). As Brin told the Guardian about Facebook, "You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive."
Well, boo hoo. Those sure are interesting words coming from the founder of a company that just changed its privacy policy so that users are forced to be one identity across all of its sites (the better to target you, my dear!). And it's laughable hearing this from Brin, seeing as Google recently started using aggressive tactics to force users onto its own social network.
Or as one commenter on the Guardian wrote:
Google playing the open and free card is highly cynical. Google's view is that it's great to be open as long as you are logged into a Google account where your web browsing behavior is efficiently tracked under one login and password, for the benefit of their advertising business.
If Google's chief Internet evangelist Vint Cerf's recent request for people to "start something" in the name of Web freedom is any indication, we can probably expect more to come from Google in terms of "warnings" about the future. And while those warnings may be within reason, when they're coming from the company that controls so much of the Web and seeks to control more, it's crucial to read between the lines.
It's all a game. Internet interest play against one another hoping to drive public opinion and government regulators into a move that will provide a countering move in their best interests.
Lawyers of course, the best corporate chess players of all, love it. Each move after all, needs their advice.
Somehow, common sense needs to be put into place. A panel of independent experts perhaps, could weight the pros and cons of proposed legislation, provide recommendations and move it all away from politics and commercial greediness.
Collectivism/ socialism/ communism/ Marxism/ fascism are unethical, since they all involve using force and intimidation/extortion to take away what people have honestly created/invented or earned, or obtained by honestly trading what they created or earned, or the person who created or earned or traded for it voluntarily gave it to them.
In this context it is only initiated force and fraud which are immoral/unethical and should be criminal.
For some it may be educational to talk with these relics and to others including myself a yawn inducing waste of time. Your screed about "... who were never numbered, spindled and mutilated ... " seems very passe, something that maybe I heard on That '70s Show. And your frothing and blather about SIN, what graphic novel did that come from? It all seems like so much dorm room hot air.
When automobiles were the play-things of the wealthy, there were no "driver licenses". Oh, they had regulations in some places that seem bizarre, today, like requiring motorists to send out a runner on foot ahead of them with a lantern to warn the equestrians (and everyone else) of their approach.
For that matter, I've known normal people who were never numbered, spindled and mutilated by federal, state, and local governments -- by which I mean their births were not "certified" by a government functionary, and they opted out of the Socialist Insecurity Abomination and hence from having a Socialist Insecurity Number (SIN), they never had their picture and fingerprints stored away by any government agency. These are not "survivalists"; they had checking and savings accounts, belonged to the local civics association, volunteered at the fire department, made occasional donations of time and money and materials to the local 4-H or Boy or Girl Scouts, worked at the polls on election days, helped groom the little league field just before the season started, owned land, some bought stocks and bonds...
It's interesting and educational to talk with them, especially regarding their impressions and the passing on of their parents' conveyed impressions of what the governments were up to at the time such measures were mandated.
Even the laissez-faire "capitalist road" does not permit/condone/ignore initiation of force or fraud... and defending against initiated force and fraud, is, indeed, the legitimate purpose of government.
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We never thought we'd write about carrier pigeons. Or the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Or corned beef hash. But these are some of the many ingredients you'll find in this week's mashup of top technology -- yes, really -- stories from around the world. Grab a fork and dig in.
Anyone still convinced that Amazon is essentially an online bookstore should at long last revise their opinions. Amazon may be gearing up to bring its full range of products and services right to your front door.
Google and Apple don't have a lock on wearable technologies. Neither do the Pebble watch or Sony. Plenty of other developers -- from well-established corporations to startups -- want a foothold in a space expected to be worth $6 billion by 2016, according to IMS Research. (See: Mary Meeker: The Future Will Be Wearable.)
IBM is advancing both its Mobile First and open-source strategies through a partnership with 10Gen, the company behind open-source NoSQL database MongoDB. Under the agreement, unveiled last week, both companies will work together on a new standard for mobile enterprise applications.
Facebook's Graph Search may face some profound challenges and risks, first, because Facebook users haven't been thinking of their posts as product reviews; and second, because Facebook will now have to contend with the social-network equivalent of SEO "gaming" of results.
Based on reactions in Nicole's Newsfeed, everyone hates this version of Facebook. This should matter to Facebook now that there's a real competitor on the scene named Google+.
In the final episode of this series about the death of Internet anonymity, Saunders describes how the Internet of the future will start to attain a level of intelligence that requires no human intervention. Scary.
What can users today do to protect their online privacy? The simplest and most obvious option is to not use the Internet – at all. However, once all digital information is consolidated over the Internet, trying to protect digital identity by simply unplugging from the Internet becomes impossible – a fact that has manifest implications for civil liberties, Saunders says.
By 2011 the number of Internet-connected sensors will exceed 1 trillion, making your chances of doing anything or going anywhere unnoticed pretty much zero. Saunders talks about how the 'sensortization' of the Internet is eliminating the traditional divide between online and offline populations.
The 20th Century Internet was characterized by the ability to interact with other people and information on the Internet largely without anyone knowing who you were. The Internet of this century, conversely, will be defined by identity. Saunders explains how Internet users are unwittingly contributing to the demise of the anonymous Internet.
Big-data and analytics tools enable marketers to understand customers as individuals, identifying unmet needs and addressing each customer as a "segment of one," says John Kennedy, VP corporate marketing, IBM.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
So here we are, the last day of the 2013 US Open Golf Championship at Merion, and Phil Mickelson -- who has been a US Open runner-up five times now but never taken the trophy -- is right up there at the top of the leaderboard.
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