[governance] 'search neutrality' to go with net neutrality

[Michael Gurstein]

Quite honestly I find this whole discussion extremely odd.  The assumption
seems to be that "we" either as "users" or as "customers" or as autonomous
"agents" interacting with Google are completely independent and free (and
able) to make or remake ourselves (through learning more, through searching
out competitors, through developing new companies etc.etc.) at will. 

This position ignores a couple of hundred years of anthropology/sociology
that points out to anyone who may have missed it that we are not first and
foremost "independent" actors free to make or remake ourselves at will.
Rather we are creatures of culture and community and while some of us have
significant opportunities because of our cultural and community backgrounds
many of us do not. Simply exhorting those who don't, to "pull up their sox
and compete like a man (or woman" is to my mind quite beside the point (and
a position which itself is highly highly culture/nation bound...

Some "users" will have the interest, skill, language to read fine print and
(most) others won't... Some will have the capacity to see through Google if
it abuses its power/position--(most) others won't... Some will have the
awareness of knowledge categories (sociology of knowledge) to understand the
ways in which Google is increasingly structuring/restructuring how we
approach knowledge itself (others are arguing that Google is in fact
influencing the very process of thinking/structure of thought but that is a
different issue) and will then be able to take a critical position for
themselves on how to prevent any possible misuse of that position but most
(and daresay including most of those on this list) will not.

That is why we have governments who have the mandate to intervene and
regulate in the public interest.  All of the above arguments on this issue
could probably be made concerning things like food and auto safety,
pollution standards, and child protection (suthorizing third parties to
intervene in abusive relationships between parents and children).  

I personally see little difference apart from the same ideological blinkers
that argued against each of the above interventions, in the instance of
Google which is probably the most broadly (at least passively) influential
(de facto monopoly) enterprise of the last decade.

Mike Gurstein 

-----Original Message-----
From: Fearghas McKay [mailto:fm-lists at st-kilda.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 7:51 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Cc: Fearghas McKay
Subject: Re: [governance] 'search neutrality' to go with net neutrality



On 5 Jan 2010, at 14:45, Ginger Paque wrote:

> Should a user have to search the fine print to find the information 
> they want?

Whatever regulation is done - a user will have to do that at some point.

Educating the user needs to be done even if there is regulation  
because they will need to understand what the regulation covers.

Personally my take on the original article is that the search rankings  
were correct, they had no valid new / original content, just a  
collection of links. The links might have been ordered or edited  
specially but they were moving me one step or more further away from  
the information that I would be looking for. The cynical might say it  
was sour grapes on the writer's part, I would put it down to a  
misunderstanding of what I as a user want :-)

The other thing that seems to be missing from this debate is that we  
are not Google's customers, we are users and we can use something else  
if we choose to, probably because the search doesn't work well enough  
for us. Whilst I am sure that Google could repurpose their  
infrastructure into something else and continue as an entity if a  
better algorithm comes along from an upstart, the market is still wide  
open for a better engine to be as disruptive as they were. It will  
probably not come from the USA, the newer emerging markets will bring  
their own giants of the network world.

	f


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