Hi all,<br><br>Google is now champion for arrogance and disinformation. They believe they reached a State statute whereby they can dictate other States what they have to do. Actually this not so different from the US gov attitude.<br>
<br>Google's dominance of the advertising market is in no way a guarantee of quality and neutrality. They just leverage their dominance for promoting their own business. And they conflate their particular interests with grand ideologies as free information for all.<br>
<br>Let's assume that drugs are free for all. Then the web would be swamped with ads for drugs, seminars praising benefits of using drugs, training sessions for acquiring drug consumption art, testimonies from drug users telling how it changed their life for the good, mass campaign vilifying institutions or governments requesting drug control, and so on. Just because the drug maffia has enough resources for controlling a free market. And the saying is "the market is right".<br>
<br>As expected, the simple association of information and drug will immediately raise fury. It's just taboo. Like associating Google interests with freedom of information.<br><br>There was a time when the US gov would resist and break excessive and abusive dominance in certain market segments, like oil, bank, telecom. Now it's the opposite. Excessive market dominance is good for US world dominance, as long as the dominant firms are based in the US. Then where are check and balance mechanisms ?<br>
<br>Let's not be fooled by Google stylish propaganda. The real issues in WCIT 2012 have nothing to do with internet censorship, and Google knows it too well. The issues are finding a more equitable balance between stakeholders interests and profits.<br>
<br>Parminder's observations are entirely relevant. The most dangerous threats to information freedom are US lead secretly negotiated treaties by multi-national lobbies, SOPA, ACTA, etc. More are coming, still secret, basically a rehash of those that failed, TPP, CleanIT, .. watch out.<br>
<br>Cheers, Louis<br>- - -<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 9:24 AM, parminder <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net" target="_blank">parminder@itforchange.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
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<div>On Wednesday 21 November 2012 01:19 PM,
parminder wrote:<br>
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<font face="Verdana">snip</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font></blockquote><div class="im">
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><font face="Verdana"> Dear Google; Yes, the world indeed needs an open
Internet, for which reason it is rather awful to note that you,
meaning, Google;<br>
<br>
1) Sold the entire net neutrality campaign </font><font face="Verdana">down the drain </font><font face="Verdana">in
the US, by first assuming its leadership and then entering into
a self-serving agreement with Verizon, whereby the main means of
accessing the Internet in the future - mobiles - are exempted
from net neutrality provisions. <br>
<br>
2) Have recently entered into exclusive arrangements with
telecos to provide Gmail, Google + and Google Search for free in
some developing countries (Philippines) , and as a special low
cost package exclusively of a few Internet services (and not the
full, public Internet) in others (India), which makes a mockery
of an open and net neutral Internet.<br>
</font></blockquote>
<br></div>
BTW, i<font face="Verdana">s it a mere coincidence these new mobile
based non-net-neutral services seem to have something to do with
the betraying compromise that Google made that is mentioned in
point 1 above?</font><div class="im"><br>
<blockquote type="cite"><font face="Verdana"> <br>
3) Tweak your search results, which is increasingly the main way
of accessing </font><font face="Verdana">locations on the </font><font face="Verdana">Internet, in non-transparent ways, with
increasing evidence that this is done in a manner that merely
serves your own commercial interests and goes against consumer/
public interest, and for which reasons Google is currently
subject to regulatory investigations in the US and EU. <br>
<br>
( There are hundreds of other outrages, big and small, including
the fact that </font><font face="Verdana">today I </font><font face="Verdana">suddenly see my default browser getting set for
"Chrome' when I prefer and have always used Mozilla Firefox and
never asked for the </font><font face="Verdana">change of </font><font face="Verdana">default.)<br>
<br>
I cannot see anything other than effective regulation of the
Internet to be able to check such excesses by Internet companies
that are deeply compromising the openness of the Internet
(sticking here to only to the subject of openness of the
Internet, used in above appeal by Google). <br>
<br>
So, lets be honest, it is not about people versus ITU, not even,
Google versus ITU, or even Google versus content regulation; it
is Google versus any regulation of the Internet space so that
Google, and similarly positioned dominant players, can have a
free run over the economic, social and political resources of
the world. <br>
<br>
It is very important to wage the needed struggles to keep
Internet's content free from undue statist controls. But one
needs to be careful about whom one chooses as partners, nay,
leaders of the campaign. Remember, the lessons from the net
neutrality campaign in the US which was sold cheap by those who
assumed its leadership. Also, have no doubt whatsoever that
ACTAs and PIPAs will come back in new forms, accommodating the
interests of the big Internet companies that led the opposition
in the first round. (Anyone wanting to take a bet on this! :) )
And. when the second round happens, since 'our leaders' would
have crossed over, there wouldnt be much fight left to give. <br>
<br>
For sure, make opportunistic, tactical, alliances, but civil
society needs to be careful not to abandon leadership of public
interest causes to players who cannot but become turncoat and,
well, betray, - sooner or later getting into bed with whoever is
economically and politically powerful around to help their
business prosper. Such is the structural logic of big business.
Let them stick to what they do best - organise productive forces
of the world. Leave public interest causes to public interest
players - civil society and governments. However, if the
sentiment is simply overflowing, maybe just donate some money to
such causes, in an arms- lenght /hands-off approach vis a vis
managing the precise activities involved. I simply dont fancy
corporate-led 'public interest' campaigns. <br>
<br>
One was stuck by the number of Google organised panels at the
Baku IGF, where they openly took part and gave their policy
pitch. As a participant from Pakistan said at a workshop ' I
find a Google representative at every panel that I am at'. Such
brash presence at policy forums and taking strong policy
positions by corporates is a relatively new game, and to my mind
not a welcome thing for our democracies. I keep hoping that
civil society would give this phenomenon a deeper thought and
analysis, rather than just riding the bandwagon. <br>
<br>
parminder </font><br></blockquote></div></div></blockquote></div><br>