[governance] Brazilian newspapers leave Google News en masse

Wed Nov 14 14:09:54 EST 2012

Michael,

the perfect ideological cover. Next step the "made in France" Google which for all I know has failed to materialize. 

Just to get a fact in the way of theory. There is a brilliant Brazilian mathematician and computer scientist who built a great search-engine company in Belo Horizonte. It got to be so good that Google bought it from him to create their first innovation lab in Latin America. 

So the talent was there, he had a great business as well as community service vision, yet the capital was not there to take that business to the next step - benefits in a vague future?

This goes well with Peter Cowhey's brilliant analysis. One instance of this is that the innovation we are speaking about here is fuelled by the money these companies get in advertising. He then provides a quick comparison of what that money is in the US and in developing countries... and you could sink into a deep depression when you see the figures. No other source - certainly not governments - is making that kind of money and it could be cause of (mostly justified) fiery public political protests if they did. 

If you'd rather postpone innovation for the sake of waiting for the "right" socially-conscious business model you may have lost me but for the most extreme rapacity cases and those which egregiously ignore the Precautionary Principle. 

I don't have a solution for this very complex set of problems but am certain that none will be found until we begin to pose the right questions. (and in this list we must return to Internet Governance.)

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty

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     Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico

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LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
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________________________________________
Desde: michael gurstein [gurstein at gmail.com]
Enviado el: miércoles, 14 de noviembre de 2012 12:44
Hasta: Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch; governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Asunto: RE: [governance] Brazilian newspapers leave Google News en masse

Hi Alejandro,

But if you combine this with the earlier but parallel note re: German and
French publications (and the possibiity of the government of France
intervening directly) then what may have been "business" very quickly
becomes "politics" and begins, perhaps to reveal the underlying issue.

This issue being that the current Internet "business model(s)" are resulting
in structured inequalities as some businesses (and countries) are benefiting
inordinately (now and likely even more in the future) while others are
benefiting less and still others (such as most LDC's) aren't economically
benefiting at all now (or even likely in the future) except in the vague and
rhetorical sense of "opening themselves to innovation/competition
etc.etc....

This isn't to argue for a specific intervention or set of interventions (at
this stage it isn't clear what could or should be done) or even less to
argue against the acceptance of Internet penetration. Rather it is to note
that there is a (very rapidly emerging) problem of emerging inequities here
and one that will need to be addressed and probably sooner rather than
later--unless of course, the world can be persuaded that these processes are
somehow inevitable (and thus necessary) or in everyone's interests (some --
the current beneficiaries -- getting their benefits immediately or in the
short term, while for others the possible benefits are in the rather vague
and somewhat mystical future...

M

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch [mailto:apisan at unam.mx]
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 10:00 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; michael gurstein
Subject: RE: [governance] Brazilian newspapers leave Google News en masse

Michael,

I would see less politics and more business in this piece of news. The
Brazilian newspapers have complained that people read only the headlines in
Google News and then don't go to the assumedly profit-making content on
their sites.

So there may be many ways to read this but one is that their content is not
interesting enough- even that which is free and is monetized through
advertising.

Further they seem to have decided in favor of their business and against
their readers. The readers will still be able to find a lot of the news in
other ways, of course, since so much of news today has become a commodity.

But, it is easy to blame others, right?

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty

! !! !!! !!!!
NEW PHONE NUMBER - NUEVO NÚMERO DE TELÉFONO

+52-1-5541444475 FROM ABROAD

+525541444475 DESDE MÉXICO

SMS +525541444475
     Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico

Blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn,
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

________________________________________
Desde: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
[governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] en nombre de michael gurstein
[gurstein at gmail.com] Enviado el: miércoles, 14 de noviembre de 2012 11:49
Hasta: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Asunto: [governance] Brazilian newspapers leave Google News en masse

(I don't believe that this below has been circulated to the governance
list... Is this part of an emerging trend of resistance to current Internet
business models and how much of this underlies the push forward and push
back by various of the forces contending around the WCIT/ITU discussions?
viz.
http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/the-ituwcit-thinking-about-internet
-regulatory-policy-from-an-ldc-perspective/  and particulalry the
comments...

http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/00-11803-brazilian-newspapers-leave-goog
le-news-en-masse

Brazil's main newspapers abandoned Google News after the world's top search
engine refused to compensate them for the rights to their headlines. The
mass rush started last year when the National Association of Newspapers in
Brazil, or ANJ, began recommending its members to opt out of the service.

=

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