[governance] FW: [IP] Google's Lawyers Work Behind the Scenes to Carry the Day - NYTimes.com

[Carlos A. Afonso]

Hmmm... I think is more simple (yes, Milton is a neoliberal etc etc :)). 
If it were possible, do a survey with twitteres or facebookers and ask 
them whether they would leave these services if they felt their privacy 
was being somehow violated or they felt they had been encased in a 
filter bubble.

I bet nearly all would not. You do not just leave Facebook -- it is not 
a simplistic question of choice like choosing a chocolate bar. On the 
other hand, the same filter bubble space may be penetrable by diverse 
agents. Yes, filter bubble is a quite workable concept (I liked the 
book) -- the main challenge is to establish what the consequences are 
for the myriad participants, with their diverse visions and objectives, 
and how these visions and activism can, say, penetrate the 
"what-the-user-want-to-see" flows.

In the Brazilian case, until the social nets provided by these "free" 
private services took hold, the traditional corporate, partidarized 
media always had their say in electoral processes. Today, with the reach 
of social media and activism in this space, things have become quite 
different, and the opposition coalition which once relied entirely on 
the big traditional media juggernaut is now desperately seeking 
solutions to the "democratization of information" that activists manage 
to circulate through these social nets.

We are in a quite complex terrain here. :)

--c.a.

On 01/08/2013 05:55 AM, Riaz K Tayob wrote:
>
> On 2013/01/07 10:13 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>> Guru, if you get badly personalized results from Google without asking
>> for it, what is to stop you from not using Google?
>
> The problem with this kind of analysis of "consumer choice" analysis is
> that it is theoretically grounded in the neo-classical and/or neoliberal
> economic theory. So let us look at what this says:
>
> 1. If consumers have choices, then there is not a problem
> 2. Consumers have choice NOT if there is a real choice (i.e. apples to
> apples) but if the market per se is contestable (Contestable Markets
> theory) - which is in part why oligopolies can be theoretically
> tolerated in anti-trust law (abuse of dominant position etc)
> 3. Government interventions are presumptively bad. Private initiatives
> (except for fraud and -as defined by law and action- anti-competitive
> behaviour).
>
> Now what is the problem with this?
>
> 1. Consumer choice is elevated as a moral/ethical good, in spite of
> practical realities: there may be qualitative issues related choices
> that are NOT available (i.e. market failures)
> 2. The theory has an internal contradiction. Contestable Markets are
> fine, but yet almost all the analysis makes use of Alfred Marshall's
> representative firm. What is a representative firm as compared to a
> "real" firm? It does not have the observable tendency to "first mover"
> advantage or to reap the benefits of economies of scale. In other words
> the theory used to justify consumer choice ab initio excludes the
> advantages that flow to Google from first mover (with a great algorithm)
> and the consequent economies of scale.
>
> Therefore, if one excludes these relevant tendencies from the analysis,
> well then one is not saying much.
>
> While consumer choice may be a relevant approach in the
> North(tactically), it has its limits in terms of theory and of context.
> Analogously In the UK something as banal as supermarkets were found to
> have a dominant market position when they controlled about 4% of the
> market (i.e. sufficient to have upstream and downstream negative effects).
>
> Now if one were to let reality impact on the theory/ideology, then
> perhaps we can chat. I mean this whole notion of consumer choice is
> aptly illustrated by the US crisis. Of course, you could have any
> Mortgage Backed Security you want - there was consumer choice - and that
> did not detract from the fact that the entire operation was hoopla. As
> spokesperson for this neoclassical theory Alan Greenspan said he was
> "shocked" that market participants breached their duties and took on the
> reputational risk (in a market governed by fides). Of course if he had
> been open to other ideas, then he might have seen this coming.
>
> But in the North (with my limited experience) the adage, 'in the land of
> the blind, the one eyed is king', more like "in the land of the blind,
> the one eyed is mad".
>
> Welcome to the mad world of heterodox economics...
>
>
>

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