Abstract Dynamics: Gmail and the "Emergent" Power of the Internet Oligarchy

April 21, 2004

Gmail and the "Emergent" Power of the Internet Oligarchy

Another one bites the dust. Say good bye to Tim O'Reilly as a thinker, and say hello to another defender of the status quo.

First lets step back, there is a big picture here, we need to see it first. Back a decade or so ago, the internet was exploding, it wasn't quite new, but it was new to most people. It represented a break from the norms of society, a new way of communication, a new form of organization. It represented a potential for change, change for the better.

Riding this wave of change were a set of thinkers, people who understood the changes at work, and could express them in ways that people could understand. They became the voice of potential, leaders of possibility. One of them was Tim O'Reilly, publisher of the best computer books around.

Cut back to now. Things have changed, the internet is big now. The internet is big business now. Big dollars, big power. The big revolution in economics was a bust, the big revolution in communication is now just another aspect of the day to day. And what once seemed like a wide open space of possibility is now increasingly the domain of an oligarchy. AOL, Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon, Microsoft and few other large corporations control vast portions of the internet, a jostle with each other for even more control.

Flash back a decade ago again. The difference between corporation and user was miniscule then. Yahoo was a site made by users to help other users. A few years later Google rose up by making a search engine the way users wanted it, not the way the first wave internet corporations envisioned it. The people starting companies where the people using the space. When leaders like Tim O'Reilly spoke out, they represented the interests of both the users of the space, and the truly innovative companies starting out in it.

Slice back to today and its a different story. The internet has undergone a phase change. The difference between the companies and the users is no longer fluid, it is striated. Being a user with a good idea is no longer enough to start a company or get a job at Google. Companies no longer hire anyone who seems intelligent, you now must have the skill set to cross the threshold into employment with a big internet firm. The big companies, the oligarchs, are now in a position of power.

Tim O'Reilly runs his own little fiefdom as the best publisher of computer books around. He has wealth and power to defend, a reason to justify the status quo. And his recent essay on Google's new Gmail service makes this all too clear.

Gmail is an email service just launched by Google. Google is offering a "free" email service in exchange for the right to serve targeted text ads in each email message. A trade off that set off alarm bells with privacy activists everywhere. In order to serve targeted ads Google's computers need to scan everyone of the users' personal email messages. As danah boyd as puts it, it just feels icky.

In an essay titled The Fuss About Gmail and Privacy: Nine Reasons Why It's Bogus Tim O'Reilly attacks those troubled by Gmail, and does it in a way that shows where his priorities now lie.

While O'Reilly claims to have 9 reasons to rebute Gmails critics, he really only has three. Two are tactics beloved by those in power for centuries. The first is the "don't rock the boat, aka its always been this way". The second is "trust us, we are smarter then you". Both are equally noxious. The third tactic is newer, a product of the corporate market era, we'll call it the "no one is forcing you, you just won't have much choice".

"Don't rock the boat" says Tim O'Reilly, Gmail's filters are basically the same as AOL's or Hotmail's or Yahoo's. He's right too. There is a huge privacy issue with email. As in email is not really private. But people think it is. They don't want companies reading their mail, by machine or in person. And if they would rather not think of themselves as being datamined by some computer cluster. The truth is that the only thing standing between your email and the prying eyes of your email host's employee's is the host's privacy policy. You know that thing you've never read.

So yeah its true that what Gmail is doing is not really anymore intrusive then what other internet email companies are doing when they filter spam. Its just that Google, with their legendary lack of subtle social skills, has made an already existing problem far more visible and apparent to the end user. In a way we should be thankful for them for bring issues to forefront. Most internet users have no clue just how much information they are depositing into databases of Google, Amazon, Yahoo and the other big internet players. And somewhere down the line people are going to wake up in shock, with the realization of just how much these corporations know about them and their personal habits. Just because a problem has been ignored doesn't mean its not a problem...

Enter the second line of defense, "trust Google, they are smart". Never mind that the early reports indicate that their spam filters are crap. Google indeed was quite innovative when they revolutionized the world of search engines at the get go. They also where a couple of PhD students plus a handful of employees. Now they are a multibillion dollar business about to go public. Innovation comes a bit differently in environments like that. Google's second big innovation came in the area of ads. Notice a shift in priorities? They've gone from innovative ways to help users, to innovative ways to help advertisers. So when they innovate are they going to innovate in a way to make your email better for you? or for their business?

The final argument O'Reilly makes is perhaps the most insidious, the "no one is forcing you" defense. This one really merits a whole essay, as its lodged deep into the mythos of the "free" market. The fact is that no market is ever "free". And while no one forces you do ever buy a product, firms have tremendous power over the shape and form of the markets they operate in. Google is an internet powerhouse and by entering the email market it will shape that market. If Gmail succeeds it will transform the dynamics of online email in a big way. And they are pushing the market towards a space of targeted ads and deep datamining. Is this a good thing? Well we don't quite know yet, but I'm watching this space with the utmost of caution.

Posted by William Blaze at April 21, 2004 01:38 PM | TrackBack

Comments

It reads oddly that you defend O'Reilly initially for his intellectual prowess, but when your opinions phase out of alignment he's cast as a sell-out or some such traitor. You must admit, he's got a great point about the non-threat of gmail in that everything that Google reveals the service will do is already being done, without disclosure, by every information outlet in existence. In my first year at my university, I worked in a deparmtment that had total access to everyone's campus correspondence, in spite of there having been a privacy guarantee and a non-disclosure act that required information access requests to be accompanied by a subpoena.

Concerning the status quo, I don't think O'Reilly is saying "don't rock the boat," it's more along the lines of "maybe you should have rocked the boat sooner."

Posted by: JK on April 22, 2004 12:09 PM

The threat is there, and it has been before, but where at all does O'Reilly say anything about this being a problem? I mean the title of the post is "The Fuss About Gmail and Privacy: Nine Reasons Why It's Bogus".

Yeah I do see O'Reilly as something of a sellout although I certainly don't blame him for it. If I had built his little publishing empire I'd probably be defending the status quo too! People get power and then they defend it, that's life.

But I'm on the outside at the moment, and there is a problem here that no one wants to talk about it. And yeah in a way Google is doing us a favor through their lack of social intelligence, maybe the privacy issues that have been glossed over for over a decade will finally explode... Maybe, but it takes people getting angry and paying attention first.

Posted by: Wm Blaze on April 22, 2004 12:28 PM

What an irony--moments after the above post, I saw an opportunity to participate in the beta version of Gmail. I've put the 'Gmail Agreement' up (http://www.c-130.blogspot.com), and, honestly, it is rather repellent. It was probably intentional that the small box provided to read the agreement was barely an inch tall and three inches wide (not a comfotable reading pose for anyone, I imagine).

I am an indefatigable defendant of privacy rights, freedom of information, and the freedom of speech that I feel are essential ideological centers around which the dialectic of a democratic republic and the rights of all humanity have been constructed. As such, I am fearful of what this service (and other related current events) say about our willingness to let go of those rights. As such, I want to use this account to test the limits of the currently ill-defined use agreement, as I am greatly curious as to what the reciprocal will be.

Curious? I am. And, as always, I appreciate your willingness to discuss.

Posted by: JK on April 22, 2004 01:57 PM

The impression I get with Google is that they have given their lawyers free reign to write these things up. And the lawyers job is to make sure Google is covered for all contingencies. And no one from marketing or public relations or customer service (if Google even has those depts) or at the top is doing anything at all to control the lawyers. The result is contracts that fuck over the user completely. And they might get away with it...

Posted by: Wm Blaze on April 22, 2004 05:58 PM

O'Reilly succinctly convinces his audience that privacy has never really been a part of the internet and the problem is, he doesn't seem to care!

Privacy isn't bogus, O'Reilly. fire your editor. now.

On my own tangent here:

Later in the article O'Reilly hints that a 'tightly coupled, centralized architecture is a real alternative' to the 'network-oriented operating system'. This bothers me. As unobtrusive as the ads my seem, and as light as their corporate image might feel, Google will never be my center for processing. ok. I support the local market. ok.

O'Reilly recognizes that Google is the leader internet application processing, accepts them like his mother, and wants everyone else to jump onboard...

Posted by: Richard Owen on April 22, 2004 07:05 PM

Worth noting that O'Reilly owns Google stock too, and stands to profit immensely when they go public...

Posted by: Wm Blaze on April 23, 2004 12:32 PM

I'd like to do a followup on that point. Do you have asource for O'Reilly's ownership of Google stock?

publisher@americandigest.org

Posted by: Gerard Van der Leun on May 1, 2004 10:47 AM

Gerard,

Yes, in the comments to this post here: http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/001886.html#comments

O'Reilly said the following: "P.S. Since you raise the issue, I do own a small amount of Google stock. I was an investor in Pyra (Blogger.com), and helped Evan to negotiate the sale to Google. But you should know better than to hint that I'm influenced by that fact. Remember back in 2000, when I led the one-click protest against Amazon, one of my largest customers? I call it as I see it, regardless of financial consequences. I don't appreciate the suggestion that I'm just trying to tout Google."

the post is a bit more then half way down the page.

Posted by: Wm Blaze on May 1, 2004 12:12 PM

The people who are so much concerned about privacy can just opt out of signing from GMAIL and block themselves from GMAIL users, as for me, I am looking forward for it.

And u cannot get those cool features gmail offers without a advertising revenue, so I see nothing wrong in that.

Posted by: Pradeep Kumar on May 9, 2004 01:58 AM

Google linked me to this page, nice reading

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HOW EFFCIENCY ARE EMERGING EQUITY MARKETS?
Evidence from Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange

Justin Kisoka

Abstract
Study investigates how efficiency is the emerging equity market Dar es Salaam Stock exchange in the price discovery processes at the company level. Weak form Efficiency of the stock markets is analyzed using unit root, serial correlation and descriptive statistics of the stock returns.
Findings for respective equities shows different behaviors over time. On efficiency, the study finds that returns of all the listed equities are negatively skewed. It also finds presence of market anomalies and negative serial correlation of stock returns as well as long- run predictability for all listed equities.The study concludes that, the market does not clear due to the presense of outstanding bid and asks and recommends for the establishment of the dealership market, introduction of the over-the-counter facility, two tier markets, promotion of more listing and collective investments schemes.

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