[discuss] [bestbits] Shoshanna Zuboff: Dark Google

Tue May 6 12:09:48 UTC 2014

One thing I’ve noticed about Milton over the years is that when he runs out of rational arguments he immediately shifts over to personal invective… I’m sure it intimidates his grad students no end.

The piece from Springer as I read it, wasn’t, at least overtly, concerned with the copyright issue.  If you had bothered to read the article you would have seen the striking parallel with Zuboff’s piece i.e. the extremely threatening position of Google as a global information monopolist.  This is the significant issue and one which will IMHO sooner rather than later need to be dealt with at a suitable aggregate level i.e. globally in the same way as the energy and transport/railway monopolists in the late 19th century had to be dealt with, through legislation/regulation. The alternative to regulation in those latter instances was the strangulation of the (in that instance) national economies and the opportunity to hold the national economy and all of its major components to ransom.

What is becoming clear in most non-ideological (or self-interest) distorted analyses is that the Internet provides opportunities for global monopolies (and all of the distortions and inequities which are the result) and that if Internet Governance doesn’t deal with these then national governments in their various localized wisdoms most certainly will.

M

From: Milton L Mueller [mailto:mueller at syr.edu] 
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2014 12:55 AM
To: michael gurstein
Cc: '1Net List'
Subject: RE: [discuss] [bestbits] Shoshanna Zuboff: Dark Google

Yes, the copyright interests and other threatened old media have been at war with Google for some time. Odd to see Mr. Gurstein siding with the MPAA and the book publishers, but when you have no consistent principles I guess the enemy of your enemy is your friend, etc. 

From: discuss-bounces at 1net.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org] On Behalf Of michael gurstein
Yes, that well known left wing conspiracy hack err the head of Axel Springer Corp (the largest publishing group in Europe) effectively calling for global regulation of Google (the monopoly provider of an increasing range of 

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