Comments on: Googlezon: A prescient reflection on media’s future http://monicabulger.com/2009/12/googlezon-a-prescient-reflection-on-medias-future/ The Search Myth: Quality Information is Not a Click Away Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:05:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Rob http://monicabulger.com/2009/12/googlezon-a-prescient-reflection-on-medias-future/comment-page-1/#comment-187 Rob Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:54:35 +0000 http://monicabulger.com/?p=228#comment-187 Monica: I appreciate your thoughtful work here and throughout your blog, very interesting questions you pose and dialogue you are trying to create, I commend you. Re: Googlezon I have a few thoughts. First while I agree there is a perception that Sergey and Larry might be like us and embody a "do no evil" philosophy, I would submit that "transparency" and business plan are generally not complementary. Transparency is something we hear more often with regards to the Government and public organizations. What Google is doing with the data they collect is the billion dollar question and my guess is they are banking on certain elements of that to be non-transparent. My second thought ties into the above. The shear scope of what Google is doing (free products) and the ground they cover as an Internet organization (virtual ubiquity) very intriguing. I'll go back to the notion of government and transparency. Google I believe in many eyes is considered a "public good" not a corporate entity. How else would we be able to sort through the mess that is the Internet if we didn't have Google. You know when a corporation name becomes a verb there's going to be trouble. So I think again the perception that Google will do good and should do good comes from it's ubiquity almost in the way that the government is ubiquitous in our lives many times without us being aware of it. Hence the calls for greater transparency. So to answer your question with a question what does it mean exactly for government to be evil? We have many examples illustrating real evil that government perpetrate. I guess the hope is that trust in the basic philosophy of Google just like that in the basic tenets of government wins out and the harm that is possible in the name of making money for Google as a corporation remains latent and never realized. The interesting test to that philosophy will be when Sergey and Larry and Eric Schmidt pass the reins to new leadership. Monica: I appreciate your thoughtful work here and throughout your blog, very interesting questions you pose and dialogue you are trying to create, I commend you.

Re: Googlezon I have a few thoughts. First while I agree there is a perception that Sergey and Larry might be like us and embody a “do no evil” philosophy, I would submit that “transparency” and business plan are generally not complementary. Transparency is something we hear more often with regards to the Government and public organizations. What Google is doing with the data they collect is the billion dollar question and my guess is they are banking on certain elements of that to be non-transparent.

My second thought ties into the above. The shear scope of what Google is doing (free products) and the ground they cover as an Internet organization (virtual ubiquity) very intriguing. I’ll go back to the notion of government and transparency. Google I believe in many eyes is considered a “public good” not a corporate entity. How else would we be able to sort through the mess that is the Internet if we didn’t have Google. You know when a corporation name becomes a verb there’s going to be trouble. So I think again the perception that Google will do good and should do good comes from it’s ubiquity almost in the way that the government is ubiquitous in our lives many times without us being aware of it. Hence the calls for greater transparency.

So to answer your question with a question what does it mean exactly for government to be evil? We have many examples illustrating real evil that government perpetrate. I guess the hope is that trust in the basic philosophy of Google just like that in the basic tenets of government wins out and the harm that is possible in the name of making money for Google as a corporation remains latent and never realized.

The interesting test to that philosophy will be when Sergey and Larry and Eric Schmidt pass the reins to new leadership.

]]> By: Sonny http://monicabulger.com/2009/12/googlezon-a-prescient-reflection-on-medias-future/comment-page-1/#comment-183 Sonny Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:44:56 +0000 http://monicabulger.com/?p=228#comment-183 As an illustration to what you said in the last part: one of the latest compromise Google had to make in the wake of the EU Privacy Directive was that they had to shorten the period of time in which Google retain personal data they gain from they online search services. In the future, i foresee more of their conducts will be streamlined to the data privacy rules, at least, in Europe or other countries with similar legal regime. As an illustration to what you said in the last part: one of the latest compromise Google had to make in the wake of the EU Privacy Directive was that they had to shorten the period of time in which Google retain personal data they gain from they online search services. In the future, i foresee more of their conducts will be streamlined to the data privacy rules, at least, in Europe or other countries with similar legal regime.

]]> By: monica http://monicabulger.com/2009/12/googlezon-a-prescient-reflection-on-medias-future/comment-page-1/#comment-182 monica Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:23:30 +0000 http://monicabulger.com/?p=228#comment-182 Thank you for your insightful comments, Sonny. I agree that companies like Google need to be answerable (more transparent) about their conduct related to data collection and that it is also our responsibility as end-users to be more aware of the privacy policies of sites we use. It will be interesting to see how the European directives related to transparency will be applied to international companies. Thank you for your insightful comments, Sonny. I agree that companies like Google need to be answerable (more transparent) about their conduct related to data collection and that it is also our responsibility as end-users to be more aware of the privacy policies of sites we use. It will be interesting to see how the European directives related to transparency will be applied to international companies.

]]> By: Sonny http://monicabulger.com/2009/12/googlezon-a-prescient-reflection-on-medias-future/comment-page-1/#comment-181 Sonny Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:13:45 +0000 http://monicabulger.com/?p=228#comment-181 Very interesting note Monica! Thanks for sharing, indeed. In fact I learned many things from you such as that etherpad thing (yes, I just checked it recently after you mentioned it). Truly what Google is doing is having having both good and bad potentials for us the users. But it is important that you stressed out the commercial motive behind this company, regardless the 'don;t be evil'-kind-of jargon. The way I see it, that is why we need some external factor to have the balance preserved: L.A.W. In a European-style data protection legal regime, data users like Google will have to be answerable relating to their conduct in data collection, use, retention, exploitation, etc. The privacy policy that Google adopts should be measured against these normative rules; one of the home-works for us (end-users or advocates) before finally we can understand what exactly they mean by 'don;t be evil'. Very interesting note Monica! Thanks for sharing, indeed. In fact I learned many things from you such as that etherpad thing (yes, I just checked it recently after you mentioned it). Truly what Google is doing is having having both good and bad potentials for us the users. But it is important that you stressed out the commercial motive behind this company, regardless the ‘don;t be evil’-kind-of jargon. The way I see it, that is why we need some external factor to have the balance preserved: L.A.W. In a European-style data protection legal regime, data users like Google will have to be answerable relating to their conduct in data collection, use, retention, exploitation, etc. The privacy policy that Google adopts should be measured against these normative rules; one of the home-works for us (end-users or advocates) before finally we can understand what exactly they mean by ‘don;t be evil’.

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