On 12/03/2013 21:32, john g marr wrote:
<snip>
> James:
>
> Hi, and thanks for restoring my faith in non-capitalist fair
> competition (or whatever). I'd also point out that we should be
> boycotting anything relating to the Web that spies on people and
> accumulates statistics about individuals. Just like who does what with
> drones (not to mention Facebook, etc.) when and where, if the
> technology exists, it is sure to be misused eventually unless "human
> nature" is drastically altered permanently (ask for comment on that,
> please).
</snip>
I certainly sympathize with this, but there is a genuine trend toward
what can be called "spying" technologies. Others would call it "adding
social functionalities". Much of it seems to be unavoidable, for
instance with Google's ability to "magically" zoom in on what you want.
It does that by storing massive amounts of information about you. If
Google didn't do this, the search results would not be nearly as good.
It costs them a lot of money to do this, and they are a for-profit
organization, and they make their money *not* from us in the general
public, who are led to believe we that are Google's customers. We are
*not* Google's customers--we are their *products*. Google's *real*
customers are those organizations who *pay them money* for the Adwords
we see everywhere; the Adwords program that is supposedly draining away
the advertising from the traditional products such as newspapers,
magazines, and so on.
What do these organizations get from Google? Google sells them its one
and only product: *our attention*. Therefore, the situation resembles
that of a dairy farm, which sells the milk of its cows. I can imagine
that the cows locked in cages in a dairy farm think, "We are so
important. All these people care for us so much. Every day people come
and feed us, make us happy, keep us warm and milk us. The entire focus
of the lives of all these people is to make us cows as happy as
possible." I remember that advertisement, one of my favorites, for
Carnation milk: "Milk from Contented Cows." Wonderful!
http://campkorey.org/wp-content/uploads/Label.jpg
I guess it is better than "Milk from cows who understand how degenerate
their situation is and want to regain their own, personal dignity."
But Google treats us like Carnation treats its cows. This is one of the
ways I would explain matters to the students. Carnation couldn't care
less about the *cows*. They care about the *milk* they get out of their
cows. Carnation will do whatever it has to in order to get more and more
milk out of the cows. They would milk them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
if they could.
In the same way, Google doesn't care about *us*, they care about our
*eyeballs*. What we look at, for how long, how we share it, what we
like, blah blah blah. If they can, they want our eyeballs 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week, and we see the evidence with Google Glasses.
And yet, getting away from this situation, which is so repugnant in many
ways, is far more difficult and complex than it would seem.
Finally, yes--I think libraries and library values address these matters
very directly and *could* become very important in finding solutions,
but it would be extraordinarily difficult to do.
Google and related technologies have wonderfully successful public
relations and advertising campaigns. As a result, I have discovered that
the average person absolutely loves Google. For many young people, they
have known it for as far back as they can remember. The page has never
changed, it is undemanding, it is always there ...
Therefore, you criticize Google to your own peril, especially if you are
a librarian because people think you are only trying to preserve your
own, antidiluvian way of existence. Therefore, talking about these
matters must be done carefully and even strategically.
--
*James Weinheimer* weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com
*First Thus* http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
*Cooperative Cataloging Rules*
http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
*Cataloging Matters Podcasts*
http://blog.jweinheimer.net/p/cataloging-matters-podcasts.html
Received on Wed Mar 13 2013 - 04:41:17 EDT
