Online Privacy

Google continues its self-serving campaign of "open for you, but not for me."
The master of the double standard, Google loves to claim that Google is "open" and even has the gall to name its net neutrality coalition the "Open Internet Coalition."
However, does Google really support "open" principles? In other words, Google talks the talk, but does it walk the walk?

• Or is Google just playing lip service to "openness" in order to gain a competitive advantage with special Washington treatment and generous corporate welfare?
• The facts indicate it.

Elise Ackerman of the San Jose Mercury News had a noteworthy and relevant article on this issue: "Google's growth has come at a price."

• The article mentions that concerns over the lack of "openness" in Google's search, are "driving the effort to develop an open-source search engine."
• "Search should be transparent, open and participatory," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia... Wales says Internet search is plagued by the same problems that bedeviled proprietary software - lack of accountability, transparency and freedom."
• "Google closely guards its top-secret formula for ranking Web sites, making it impossible for a publisher to know why a site might enjoy front-page ranking one day in the search results and drop to Page 100 the next."
• "... Wales' programmers will publicly disclose their algorithms for ranking results in the Wikia Search project."

Well Google, if openness is truly an important principle to Google, why not agree to make Google's search algorithm, which is the industry's ultimate "Black Box", "open" to all so all can benefit?

Google must be worried about their Doubleclick acquisition having arranged an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today entitled Googling 'Monopoly' by PFF President Tom Lenard and Emory University professor Paul Rubin.

• While Google must be thankful for the placement in the WSJ, they have to be bummed about the unfortunate title.
  • Google loves to generously slather the "opoly" epithet on any formidable competitor who is in their way, so it must drive them crazy when it sticks to them in the WSJ.

First, let me say that I genuinely respect Mr Lenard and Mr. Rubin, and understand that on antitrust issues, analysts can honestly disagree on outcomes and impacts.

A couple of readers kindly pointed out that I made my own oops in my early August blog post: "Oops! Googleopolist's wife speaks out of school on pending merger."

I regret any confusion I created in mistaking that "Google product manager" Susan Wojcicki" was married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin -- in fact she is the sister-in-law of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and also one of the earliest employees of Google.

Investors Business Daily and Pete Barlas had a super antitrust scoop today embedded in its article "Video, Cell, Display Ads get More Google Focus".

The article quoted "Google product manager" Susan Wojcicki, (who also just recently married Google co-founder Sergey Brin), candidly defining the online ad market to reporters.

• Her blunt public market defintion must have Google's antitrust lawyers absolutely cringing and muttering expletive deleteds.

During a meeting with reporters, IBD quoted Ms. Wojcicki saying:

It seems that our friends up North may also be concerned about the anti-competitive impact of the Google-Double-Click merger.

CIPPIC, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, is requesting that the Canadian authorities review the Google-Double-Click merger to determine if it is anti-competitive.

• Seems from their filing that they have similar concerns as the FTC and the EC.
• Could this be evidence of momentum in the growing concern over this merger? Yep. 

I've done a lot of work on the facts surrounding this merger case and am very confident that the more authorities learn about the facts of the case -- the more concerned and troubled they will get about the profound and broad implications this merger portends for the future of the Internet business model for accessing content.

The outrage over Google-Youtube's complicity in rampant content theft and piracy continues to spread around the world.

• As reported by the AP in "Youtube blasted over copyright issues": 
• "A coalition of Japanese television, music and film companies slammed YouTube Thursday, saying the online video sharing service was not doing enough to rid the site of cartoons and other clips that infringe copyright." ...
• "There is no middle ground," Matsutake said. "We demand that all copyrighted material be removed immediately."

Let's focus on the corporate scofflaw pattern here: American, Japanese, and European content owners accross a wide swath of content industries are all outraged and suing Google for theft.

Johna Till Johnson of Network World, has got Google's number in the article "Net Neutrality? Google, go first!"

• "Forget "don't be evil" -- Google's real motto is: "Just trust us (and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain).""

  "Sorry, fellas, I'm not the trusting sort. And I always worry about the man behind the curtain. The reality behind the propaganda is this: The "open" company's considerable fortunes are based around the world's most proprietary search engine. And as for "neutral" -- try Googling Google, and you may notice something surprising: very few negative comments on the company pop up. Odd, no?"

For those following the FTC's Google-DoubleClick merger review (and whether my prediction in my Googleopoly.net white paper that the FTC will block this merger is on the mark), this link to an article called "Google's Killer App" is a current and real life case study of how Google anti-competitively forecloses competition in the markets adjacent to them.

• Or in other words, this article raises the question: can "free" ever be a bad thing or anti-competitive?

This excellent case study article is by Brandt Dainow, a web analytics competitor to Google who has conceded that:

You can tell a lot about the true soul of people by how they treat the vulnerable and disadvantaged; do they naturally seek to help and protect those in need or do they instinctively seek to exploit others weaknesses for their own monetary or other gain?

• Or after a disaster, do people help with supplies, water, and a helping hand or do they opportunistically price gouge or seek to make a quick buck off of others misfortune? 

Despite Google's infamous words in its "Don't be evil" motto, its actions recently in dealing with the job-loss ravaged town of Lenoir, North Carolina gives us a sad and disappointing glimpse into the real soul of Google -- the Silicon Valley titan and leading brand in the world.

BusinessWeek just published an outstanding government/human interest story called: "The High Cost of Wooing Google" where it chronicles the story of how Google exploited the "down-on-its-luck" town of Lenoir, North Carolina with hardball negotiating tactics to extract :  "a package of tax breaks, infrastructure upgrades, and other goodies valued at $212 million over 30 years, or more than $1million for each of the 210 jobs Google said it eventually hoped to create in Lenoir."

The BusinessWeek article continued:

I highly recommend a great ComputerWorld article: "Google's cookie expiration plan called worthless."

Google has made a big mistake thinking that web users are stupid and won't test and check their blanket assertions. Here are a couple of quotes from the great ComputerWorld article:

• "After listening to feedback from our users and from privacy advocates, we've concluded that it would be a good thing for privacy to significantly shorten the lifetime of our cookies," [Google's]Fleischer said.