Tagged: Jeff Jarvis
Canadian cringe quote of the week — technology division
Jeff Jarvis speaking to Leo LaPorte on this week’s edition of This Week in Google:
I listen to Radio Canada — CBC — on Sirius all the time, because they have good programs, and they’re covering RIM like it’s really a story, ‘cause they have to, ‘cause it’s like a national requirement. It’s so sad.
Peter Rojas chimed in:
That company… Those two, the co-CEOs, should be fired. Those guys are in complete denial. Whatever they were able to lead the company to success before, they’re clearly not able to take it to where it needs to go now. They’re executing way too slowly, the products are not exciting, and I think they still completely overvalued their core asset which is basically how well Blackberries do email and the security stuff.
LaPorte:
I think that what they did not count on was that the employee would start choosing the handset, not the employer. I think that’s really what happened…. Employees said, “Nope, I’m not using that crappy phone. I’m using an iPhone.”
Before Google went evil
Google wasn’t always a carrier-humping, net-neutrality, surrender money, and TechCrunch has video to prove it:
For those who don’t follow tech news, Google pulled a stunning about-face on net-neutrality this week, teaming up with Verizon, the very company it pilloried on the issue, in an agreement to abandon the concept of neutrality for fast-growing wireless portions of the Internet, and for whatever new transmission technologies happen along in future.
The do-no-evil company’s reversal stunned the tech world. Unabashed Google admirer Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do, called it a Munich Agreement, a description Josh Marshall of TPM Media said was “a bit inflammatory, but pretty much captures it.” Added Jarvis: “Pass the sauerkraut, Herr Chamberlain.”
Wired’s Ryan Singel, too, offered trenchant analysis, and dug out this ringing declaration from a 2007 Google blogpost:
The nation’s spectrum airwaves are not the birthright of any one company. They are a unique and valuable public resource that belong to all Americans. The FCC’s auction rules are designed to allow U.S. consumers — for the first time — to use their handsets with any network they desire, and and use the lawful software applications of their choice.
Google defended itself, weakly, in a blog post by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel.
To underscore the totality of Google’s reversal, TechCrunch produced this letter to Google users by none other than CEO Eric Schmidt.
A Note to Google Users on Net Neutrality:
The Internet as we know it is facing a serious threat. There’s a debate heating up in Washington, DC on something called “net neutrality” – and it’s a debate that’s so important Google is asking you to get involved. We’re asking you to take action to protect Internet freedom.
In the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill, and one that may come up for a key vote in the Senate in the next few weeks, would give the big phone and cable companies the power to pick and choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet.
Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.
Creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight. Please call your representative (202-224-3121) and let your voice be heard.
Thanks for your time, your concern and your support.
Eric Schmidt
Google has been a huge force for consumer rights in this incredibly important field. Its defection is a blow that will force defenders of an open Internet to organize.
Unfriending Facebook
At a web app developers’ conference on April 21, Facebook unveiled a breathtakingly ambitious program to reorganize the way personal information is shared on the Internet.
The changes, known as Open Graph, are hard to summarize simply, but they include the use of cookies, login codes, and Facebook “like” buttons on other companies’ websites, to automatically share user information and preferences with other websites, which then use that information to personalize a user’s browsing experience. More detailed explanations here and here.
With 415 million users, Facebook offers web developers a powerful incentive to play ball, and they have flocked to embrace the new program. On opening day, Open Graph had 75 partners; a week later, 50,000.
Admirers believe Open Graph represents an important step in the development of the “semantic web,” in which net-connected computers move from simply executing instructions to understanding the information they are trading.
Detractors accuse Facebook of a Big Brotherish hijacking of users’ private data. I am a detractor, and unless something changes, I’ll be deactivating* my FB account.
I am no privacy freak. On the contrary, I believe the recent fetish for privacy often does as much harm as good, by giving governments a ready excuse to withhold information that ought to be in the public domain. However, I added personal information to my FB account for the sole purpose of letting people I designate as “friends” see it. I never intended FB to share that information with L.L. Bean, Wal-Mart, or Empire Theatres, so they could better customize my browsing experience. Nor do I want those sites trading information about my browsing habits or purchases with FB, which is exactly what Open Graph does.
My concern is heightened by FB’s vivid history of demonstrated indifference to privacy concerns. The Electronic Freedom Foundation has a chronology. Moneyquote:
Facebook originally earned its core base of users by offering them simple and powerful controls over their personal information. As Facebook grew larger and became more important, it could have chosen to maintain or improve those controls. Instead, it’s slowly but surely helped itself — and its advertising and business partners — to more and more of its users’ information, while limiting the users’ options to control their own information.
Each time FB changes its privacy options, it defaults to openness. Users who want to tighten their privacy settings must go into their account pages and negotiate an obscure and confusing series of settings. Even then, they will be unable to prevent FB from sharing basic information such as thei profile photo and their friend list. It’s clear that FB has made the settings deliberately hard to use.
Leo Laporte, my favorite tech guru, had a good (and accessible) discussion of FB’s privacy issues on the latest edition of his tech podcast with guests Gina Trepani and Jeff Jarvis. (The FB discussion is about 20 minutes in.) Their conclusion: if someone as tech savvy as Laporte can’t figure this stuff out, how is an ordinary user supposed to.
Trepani has published step-by-step instructions for how to reef down your privacy settings, as has the New York Times’ Gadgetwise blog.
Interested readers can find more discussion of these issues here, here, and here.
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* “Deactivating” is a moderate option. It suspends your FB service, but saves all your data in case you later change your mind. People can no longer see an inactive profile, but they can still tag you in photos and invite you to events (although you won’t see the invitations). Even so, FB users wishing to deactivate must navigate a series of guilt trips, including picture of FB friends who will “miss you.” “Deleting” is the nuclear option. Your data is gone, and should you later re-join, you re-join from scratch.
