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.
Google is a voluntary freebie, you can choose not to use it.
Now about that myth about privacy, you lost it back in the '80s.
Drivers license numbers used to be SSNs and drivers license records were public records. did you ever wonder how AAA knew whenever you moved to another state? Your driver's records, again public record.
Birth certificates, death records: public record. Home purchases, real estaye transactions : public record
Credit cards: Whenever you make a credit card transaction you don't suppose that the company keeps tabs on what you bought or donated to? Why would you suddenly get mail from other like charities or vendors? You don't suppose the charge card companies sold mailing lists of people who have done certain things before? Try an experiment, buy something really random that you've never used your card for before then watch your junk mail.
Having a similar privacy policy for an entire company to some of us might be a good thing.
Google's just looking out for our safety. They kept "You" in YouTube for a reason. And "You" rhymes with the Goo in Google, again reinforcing that Google is first and foremost about you.
Well, I do agree that if the Internet becomes more restrictive in ways that hurt Google, they will have a hard time finding YOU and selling others what they know about you.
However, less cynically, Google is smart enough to know that whatever the Internet is today, it won't be that 5 years from now. Market share can move fast in this space (Microsoft running television ads about Internet Explorer ought to be a sign) and the more control there is over content and user privancy, the less it matters in the future how Google was doing as a company in 2005, or 2010.
It may seem crazy talk, but Google as as much chance of being in 2020 what AOL is today as Google has of leading the free world in revenue and profits. I don't believe them, but I would be taking the same approach if I were them.
That is a fascinating comparison, jabailo, it puts in perspective the self-serving agenda Google has. As you and Nicole point out, it is an effort to mainpulate the rules to play the game in their favor.
No one faults that but the guise of public interest and internet freedom is where they lose credibility; also noting Kim's other points. I wonder how long they think the public can be fooled?
Great comment, jabailo, and really appropriate comparison.
Again, I don't disagree with Sergey that governments and the like threaten the future of Web freedom. But I'm not worried about Google's freedom and Google isn't worried about the users' freedom. It's worried about its own ability to operate how it wants, where it wants, and do whatever it wants with anyone's data.
Too true, Kim. Google needs to be put in its place. Left to its own devices on the "open Web" it does what it wants, and its wants are quite out of step with the wants of its users when it comes to privacy.
I made a comparison in Bloomberg the other day of Google to an 1890s petroleum company.
In the early days of oil, all the wells were gushers. You dig deep enough, and oil shoots out under its own pressure. As time went on, the gushers dryed up. The holes had to be dug deeper. The oil had to be pressure pumped. Slant drilled. Offshore platformed.
Google is still coming off the high of the gusher days.
You set up an index, and it finds content...just laying there in the web.
But those days are over. What Google calls "restrictions" are merely the natural boundaries that people have started to put up to defend their property.
Face it...Google is a content portal. But it's owners are rich, and the average Web Worker...well, as they say, keep your day job kid!
Brin and Cerf are both very smart guys, and are worth listening to. But yes, you're right, we're bound to view these initiatives as tied up with Google's commercial interests. After all, Vint Cerf may be an evangelist, but Google is not a church: it's an enterprise, currently engaged in hot combat with other powerful enterprises.
You might also have mentioned other recent failings by Google: impeding the FCC inquiry into location monitoring; and the FTC inquiry into Google knowingly circumventing privacy controls on Safari. Google looks like it needs rules.
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At the IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit here in Nashville, I'm hearing many stories about how businesses have adapted their IT strategies in response to this rapidly changing, pressurized, data-driven commercial world.
Neal Stephenson is best known as the author of science fiction novels such as SnowCrash and Anathem. But he does other things as well. Among them: He's assembled a team of scientists and engineers to figure out how to build a 20-kilometer-tall tower to use as a platform for launching rockets into space.
While interstellar travel presents huge challenges, it's "almost inevitable," according to a speaker at the Starship Century symposium here in San Diego.
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.
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.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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