Google on Chrome: What We Meant Really… No, Really
September 4, 2008
You must read Matt Cutts’s “Google Does Not Want Rights to Things You Do Using Chrome”. First, click here to read the original clause about content and rights. Now read the September 3, 2008, post about what Google * really * meant to say here. I may be an addled goose in rural Kentucky but I think the original statements in clause 11.1 expressed quite clearly Google’s mind set.
It sure seems to me that the two Google statements–the original clause 11.1 and Mr. Cutts’s statements–are opposite to one another. In large companies this type of “slip betwixt cup and lip” occurs frequently. What struck me as interesting about Google is that it is acting in what I call due to my lack of verbal skill, “nerd imperialism”.
What troubles me is the mounting evidence in my files that Google can do pretty much what it wants. Mr. Cutts’ writing is a little like those text books that explain history to suit the needs of the school district or the publisher.
Google may house it lawyers one mile from Shoreline headquarters, but the fact is that I surmise that Google’s legal eagles wrote exactly what Google management wanted. Further I surmise that Google needs Chrome to obtain more “context” information from Chrome users. I am speculating but I think the language of the original clause was reviewed, vetted, and massaged to produce the quite clear statements in the original version of clause 11.1.
When the the firestorm flared, Google felt the heat and rushed backwards to safety. The fix? Easy. Googzilla rewrote history in my opinion. The problem is that the original clause 11.1 showed the intent of Google. That clause 11.1 did not appear by magic from the Google singularity. Lawyers drafted it; Google management okayed the original clause 11.1. I can almost hear a snorting chuckle from Googzilla, but that’s my post heart attack imagination and seems amusing to me. (I was a math club member, and I understand mathy humor but not as well as a “real” Googler, of course.)
If you have attended my lecture on Google’s container invention or read my KMWorld feature about Google’s data model for user data, are you able to see a theme? For me, the core idea of the original clause 11.1 was to capture more data about “information.” Juicy meta information like who wrote what, who sent what to whom, and who published which fact where and when. These data are available in a dataspace managed by a dataspace support platform or DSSP which Google may be building.
Google wants these meta metadata to clean up the messiness of ambiguity in information. Better and more data means that predictive algorithms work with more informed thresholds. To reduce entropy in the information it possesses, you need more, better, and different information–lots of information. For more on usage tracking and Google’s technology, you can find some color in my 2005 The Google Legacy and my 2007 Google Version 2.0. If you are an IDC search research customer, you can read more about dataspaces in IDC report 213562. These reports cost money, and you will have to contact my publishers to buy copies. (No, I don’t give these away to be a kind and friendly former math club member. Giggle. Snort. Snort.)
Plus, I have a new Google monograph underway, and I will be digging into containers, janitors, and dataspaces as these apply to new types of queries and ad functions. For me the net net is that I think Google’s lawyers got it right the first time. Agree? Disagree? Help me learn.
Stephen Arnold, September 4, 2008
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