Google is getting lambasted all over the Internet today for its decision to cave to authoritarian Chinese policies that dictate censorship of any information that could spark criticism of the government. Like most everybody, it seems, I initially reacted to this news with disgust at Google’s apparent willingness to trash principles for profits.
But, a post by Rebecca MacKinnon made me soften my antipathy for Google, an ironic reaction given that she finds Google’s willingness to cater to Chinese officials “evil.” But along the way she raises some very interesting points.
The first is that Google, unlike Yahoo or MSN, at least will let readers know when something has been censored out, a step in the right direction given that now, no Internet users in China can tell if there is information that is missing.
Google will at least be letting people know: “hey, there’s a lot more out there which people outside China can see, but your government won’t let me show it to you.” That is at least a positive step towards honesty and respect for the Chinese user’s intelligence. Will that lead to greater user trust and thus greater competitive advantage? If so, might that force other companies to be more honest with their users as well? Or is this all wishful dreaming?
And while at first blush it sounds “evil” that Google will not allow blogging or email, Google may actually being trying to avoid situations where it has to turn over bloggers to Chinese police.
Google says it has opted not to provide any services such as email or blogging services that would require hosting user data inside Chinese jurisdiction. This is a clear choice they have made to avoid having to turn users over to the Chinese police as Yahoo did or to censor bloggers as Microsoft does. Will they stick to this choice or will the lure of business draw them deeper into evilness?
As I mentioned at the outset, MacKinnon concludes that Google is probably in the wrong, even if they are less evil than other Internet companies doing business in China.
At the end of the day, this compromise puts Google a little lower on the evil scale than many other internet companies in China. But is this compromise something Google should be proud of? No. They have put a foot further into the mud. Now let’s see whether they get sucked in deeper or whether they end up holding their ground.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:29 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Two items in the New York Times address the issue of privacy from different angles.
Katie Hafner’s piece uses interviews to convey how some Internet users are responding to the revelation that the Justice Department is seeking search results from Google and other search providers. Its mix of quotes highlights how free most of have felt about searching for virtually any information on the web, and how even the hint that “Big Brother is Watching” can begin to squelch that sense of freedom and the urge to learn and explore that’s enabled by Internet searching in ways not seen before in human history. In that respect, the article gives a very human face to the electronic privacy issues now increasingly in the public eye.
In another NYT piece, David Shenk, author of “Data Smog,” says that “[o]ut of convenience, we embraced technologies meant to track our every move…For better and worse, free societies are fast entering the world of total surveillance.”
After citing a number of examples, including Gmail, Apple’s MiniStore and RFID tags, Shenk says “[o]ur increased exposure will demand a much more nuanced definition of what “privacy” means as well as specific new tools to help us navigate its components [and] new and broader vigilance.”
Sadly, today’s fine-print corporate disclaimers do not even come close to being adequate, and proper disclosure is unlikely to come without government action. But the good news is that there is a simple and elegant standard for all surveillance minders to adopt: citizens have the right to know - in real time - when and how they are being monitored. Just as some states require “all-party consent” for telephone recordings, so it should be with e-mail, Web surfing, walks in the park or any activity being captured by a distant unseen party.
Shenk offers up several examples of such disclosures, including “All persons entering City Park are subject to video and audio surveillance by the Metropolitan Police Department” and “Thank you for browsing at BooksOnLine.com, where page views are recorded and attached to your file. Click here if you prefer to browse anonymously.”
Echoing a point I made in an earlier post, Shenk concludes that:
Sunshine is the only antidote to surveillance, and openness is inherently democratic. Such disclosures allow consumers to react as they wish. And if the snooping is too embarrassing for companies or public officials to acknowledge, their noses shouldn’t be there to begin with.Posted by Mitch Shapiro at 5:35 PM | Print | Comments (0)
While Disney and Pixar bask in the glory of their $7.4 billion merger deal, Disney’s legions of lawyers are in Delaware even as we speak engaging in oral arguments in the appeal of a decision last August that found in favor of Disney’s board for allowing former Disney CEO Michael Eisner to give fired executive Mike Ovitz $140 million in severance after 14 months of employment.
Yes, it’s THAT case…and you thought it ended long ago. In fact, Ovitz was fired in 1995, over ten years ago. But the litigation lives on. The shareholders who originally sued Disney’s board for allowing such a hefty pay-out to take place vowed to appeal and opening arguments in this chapter of the Eisner-Ovitz debacle kicked off today.
I’ll check back with you in another few years to give you a status report on this litigation.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 4:26 PM | Print | Comments (0)
iTunes has a been a force for bad and good music, bad and good books and bad and good television. But now the audio and video online store is playing a role in helping make the world a smarter place — Stanford University is making a wide-range of lectures, speeches, debates and other content available to the public at no charge via Apple’s video and audio store.
And the sessions in higher learning have been a hit. Through the end of the Fall semester in December, Stanford’s content was getting 15,000 tracks a week accessed at iTunes. The university plans to expand the coverage to include sports, with Stanford’s athletic matches slated to be available in video podcast form at iTunes.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 3:27 PM | Print | Comments (1)Saul Hansell has an excellent overview in today’s New York Times about the arrival of convergence and how, despite the decades-old predictions that convergence is on the way, media moguls and traditional content distributors are nonetheless flummoxed about how to deal with it.
My favorite passage contains an assesment from a media visionary who is not much quoted these days.
“Convergence is possible now, and you are seeing the earliest breaks on the beach,” said John C. Malone, the chairman of Liberty Media, who has been trying to profit from convergence for the last two decades. Now that it’s here, he predicts there will trouble for many established companies. “The ‘anything, anytime, anywhere’ paradigm is really going to shift the world of media,” he said. “There will be a tough, grinding transition for an awful lot of businesses.”Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:47 AM | Print | Comments (0)
Google is a seeming paradox — on the one hand, the company is caving to the Chinese government’s demands by launching a censored version of its service in China. The new service, Google.cn, won’t have email or blogging capability and Google has removed some content from search results to yield to the government’s stringent demands to control information in order to control the people.
On the other hand, Google will fight with the U.S. government over a subpoena to deliver anonymous search records under the guise of protecting citizens’ privacy (and protecting its trade secrets). As John Battelle says:
Apparently, the DOJ and Wall St., Google can say no to. China….not so much.
Update: Another take on Google’s decision to cave to the Chinese authorities comes from John Murrell at SiliconValley.com.
Apparently you can scratch “censorship in pursuit of profit” off your list of Things That Are Evil. [referring to Google’s famed motto “Don’t be evil.”]
Update: OK, another favorite quote about Google’s decision to do this comes from Mike Langberg at The Mercury News.
Now is the time for Google to change its motto from the overly ambitious “Don’t Be Evil” to the more realistic “Don’t Be More Evil Than Necessary.”Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:23 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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