[discuss] [bestbits] Shoshanna Zuboff: Dark Google

[michael gurstein]

Of course there is a lot of special pleading (although I didn't read this article as of that sort), but the issue is not protection for academic publishers (for whom I have absolutely no regard or loyalty) but rather concerning the larger issue of a global monopoly over a vital product/service.

The reason the US (and other G's) (were forced to) move in to regulate the oil monopoly, the railroads, the telephone system, the electrical grid was not to protect the coal oil/dray horse/pony express/kerosene industries of their time but rather because a single company (or a small consortium of colluding companies) had (natural) monopoly positions in products/services that were of specific national interest and where the risk of the improper use of that monopoly position outweighed even the extreme laissez faire ideologies of the time.

Since Google with 91% (?) of the global search market (i.e. providing organized and facilitated access to the information of the world) would seem to fall into that category then the issue is not protection for a single industry but rather protection for multiple industries and for the public good.  

M

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at 1net.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org] On Behalf Of Brian E Carpenter
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2014 10:02 PM
To: 1Net List
Subject: Re: [discuss] [bestbits] Shoshanna Zuboff: Dark Google

On 07/05/2014 05:28, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> On 6 May 2014 08:09, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> The piece from Springer as I read it, wasn’t, at least overtly, 
>> concerned with the copyright issue.
>>
> 
> 
> No, but the comment speaks to the company's long-standing grudge 
> against Google. So when you appeal to the gravitas of Springer as 
> somehow being relevant to the authenticity (let alone relevance) of 
> its claims, Springer's backstory with Google -- and this its 
> subjective motivations -- also becomes relevant.

I'm a Springer author, and I was informed by a friend that within days of my book coming out, it was available for free from a .ru address.
That's Springer's real problem; if it wasn't Google who found the pirate copy, it would be some other search engine. Blaming Google is blaming the messenger.

There is a superb cartoon in the New Yorker dated May 5, 2014. A group of business people, obviously publishers, sits at a table and the chairman says "We need to rethink our strategy of hoping the Internet will just go away."

Don't even think about pirating it.

    Brian


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