[governance] NYT: Your Online Attention, Bought in an Instant

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Yes, that, and hotmail, yahoo and the like, are definitely free as in beer rather than free as in freedom.

But unless our standpoint is to be that industry must not be allowed to express any sort of opinion at all, or that whatever opinion they have somehow ranks less than an opinion expressed by a civil society group, we cannot (a) not put substantial work ourselves into policy and tech issues and (b) then accuse them of dominating the discourse.   

Do note that I don't claim that they don't have customer service obligations.  They employ a sizeable staff, rather larger than the staff of many a large NGO, to provide email and other free services, and provide even the basic level of service that they do offer free accounts.   

Sure, things can be better handled, there is always scope for improvement and all that, but I am sorry if I gave you the impression google has no customer service obligations at all to their free / ad supported customer base.  

--srs (iPad)

On 18-Nov-2012, at 22:09, "michael gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

> None of the below… Simply demonstrating that Google's online services are not "free" … (an interesting partial surrogate for the actual cost of the service would be the price one would pay for the "ad free service". Google of course, is getting additional revenue from the sale/rental of the information that you are providing as a user of the its services over and above that obtained through advertising…
>  
> Nothing wrong with any of that, but it is well to see the services for what they are and to place them in the correct context as "commercial" services rather than "free" services as you indicated earlier in arguing that Google had no customer service obligations since the services it was providing were "free".)
>  
> M
>  
> From: Suresh Ramasubramanian [mailto:suresh at hserus.net] 
> Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2012 8:15 AM
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; michael gurstein
> Cc: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
> Subject: Re: [governance] NYT: Your Online Attention, Bought in an Instant
>  
> Of course you can pay a few dollars a month for an ads free service.
> 
> There are also free services supported by other means of funding .. public libraries and such.
>  
> Is this news of any sort?  Or unexpected?  Or somehow evil?
>  
> --srs (iPad)
> 
> On 18-Nov-2012, at 21:34, "michael gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> More on Google (etc.) providing "free" services on the web…
>  
> M
>  
> ----------------------------------------------
> From: Ottawadissenters at yahoogroups.com [mailto:Ottawadissenters at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell
> Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2012 7:04 AM
> To: Ottawadissenters at yahoogroups.com; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
> Subject: [Ottawadissenters] Your Online Attention, Bought in an Instant
> NY Times Nov 17, 2012
> YOU can be sold in seconds.
> 
> No, wait: make that milliseconds.
> 
> The odds are that access to you — or at least the online you — is being bought and sold in less than the blink of an eye. On the Web, powerful algorithms are sizing you up, based on myriad data points: what you Google, the sites you visit, the ads you click. Then, in real time, the chance to show you an ad is auctioned to the highest bidder.
> 
> Not that you’d know it. These days in the hyperkinetic world of digital advertising, all of this happens automatically, and imperceptibly, to most consumers.
> 
> Ever wonder why that same ad for a car or a couch keeps popping up on your screen? Nearly always, the answer is real-time bidding, an electronic trading system that sells ad space on the Web pages people visit at the very moment they are visiting them. Think of these systems as a sort of Nasdaq stock market, only trading in audiences for online ads. Millions of bids flood in every second. And those bids — essentially what your eyeballs are worth to advertisers — could determine whether you see an ad for, say, a new Lexus or a used Ford, for sneakers or a popcorn maker.
> 
> More………….. 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/technology/your-online-attention-bought-in-an-instant-by-advertisers.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121118&_r=1&
> http://tinyurl.com/bw9ngoq
>  
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