The Google Causes a Swallowing Problem
May 1, 2009
The Financial Times has picked up the Google bat and taken a whack at Googzilla. The article “Gagging on Google” appeared in the Financial Times here. The article, written by Maverecon, a serious looking fellow named Willem Buiter has a killer lead:
Google is to privacy and respect for intellectual property rights what the Taliban are to women’s rights and civil liberties: a daunting threat that must be fought relentlessly by all those who value privacy and the right to exercise, within the limits of the law, control over the uses made by others of their intellectual property. The internet search engine company should be regulated rigorously, defanged and if necessary, broken up or put out of business. It would not be missed.
I have been involved in online information for a long time. I have written numerous and dull articles and monographs. Never did the notion of comparing an online vendor to the Taliban and civil liberties cross my mind. In a way, it is quite imaginative and provides a good example how the dead tree crowd is responding to Google. Metaphors in a blog can be a powerful weapon. At least, I surmise that’s what the top dogs at the FT believe.
Mr. Buiter touches upon the “m” word via indirection, copyright head on, and Google’s street view as “the universal voyeur.” I don’t have the energy to see if Mr. Buiter knows that Udi Manber’s street images for Amazon’s A9 was the pioneer in this type of content enrichment. I suppose Mr. Buiter is happy with a dead tree telephone directory and no photo of the business or home that he is trying to find in the rain in heavy traffic. Mr. Buiter has also discovered Google’s tracking cookies. I was disappointed that he cited another source instead of my 2005 The Google Legacy for his explanation of cookies. The wrap up is a call to readers to accept this assertion:
Google company’s founding motto is: ‘Don’t be evil.’ But it does evil. It has indeed, become the new evil empire of the internet. It is time for people to take a stand, as individual consumers and internet users, and collectively through laws and regulations, to tame this new Leviathan. When I get back from this trip, I will do my best to remove every trace of Google from my computers, even the tracking cookies (if I can!).
I think that the FT has trumped the vituperation directed at Google by the Guardian and the Telegraph. I am looking forward to what these dead tree outfits write. In my opinion, that Taliban comparison is going to be tough to beat.
Unfortunately for the dead tree crowd, the GOOG has been plodding along for a decade. Now the newspaper folks have discovered how online works. What revelations await me? What do I know? I just captured the information I unearthed about Google in publishing in my new monograph. I wonder if the FT will review it? Probably not. I focus on what Google will be doing in a year or two, not what Google has been doing for a decade. Ah, for the days of yesteryear. When grapes were not sour. When newspapers were the information giants. When paper was cheap. When eight year olds would peddle them for a few pence. When ink was economical. When there was no other way to get information…
Stephen Arnold, May 1, 2009
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