“The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin,” Ian Katz reports for The Guardian.
“The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, he claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry’s attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of ‘restrictive’ walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms,” Katz reports. “He said he was most concerned by the efforts of countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to censor and restrict use of the internet, but warned that the rise of Facebook and Apple, which have their own proprietary platforms and control access to their users, risked stifling innovation and balkanising the web. ‘There’s a lot to be lost,’ he said. ‘For example, all the information in apps – that data is not crawlable by web crawlers. You can’t search it.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Certain governments are definitely a concern, but Brin’s characterization of Apple and Facebook are at least as hypocritical as Microsoft’s Gates and Ballmer for years serially claiming to be “innovators.”
Google wants access to traipse around everywhere, looking under every rock, sampling everything in the entire garden in which others work the land, while Google profits from the fruits of their labor. Besides trying to copy other’s mobile OSes or social networks in order to attempt to gain access to or at least weaken certain garden “walls,” gathering detailed lists of what’s in the garden in order to sell ads for fertilizer, shovels, and hoes is Google’s business model. There’s nothing wrong with this, but would Google grant such complete access to competitors? Is Google for such “Internet freedom” for other search engines and/or online advertising firms?
We submit that all of these “walls,” or even just the prospect of them, have caused Google to lose their way.
What if we don’t want Google, or any one entity, to have access to all the world’s data? Perhaps it’s better, even if we sometimes have to sacrifice a bit of convenience and search a little harder, if there is no monolithic gatekeeper?
And why have Google recently embarked on a PR tour? Do they have internal polling? Are they concerned about their company’s image?
Related articles:
Google’s Larry Page: Steve Jobs’ fury over Android was ‘for show’ – April 4, 2012
James Whittaker: Why I left Google – March 14, 2012
What is up with Eric Schmidt’s revisionist history of his relationship with Steve Jobs? – October 14, 2011
The greatest threat to the Internet is ironically Google itself. Google has been collecting a lot of information on people through trickery or outright theft. Google is just another money-making corporation. Its pretensions to be better than the government to rule is either arrogance or blatant naiveté. Freedom presupposes responsibility. If what Google meant by freedom is to have the license to steal, to trick, to rip-off and to do all manner of evil things, it’s better that the Internet never exist at all. It is because of some irresponsible entities like Google making the Internet dangerous for others that the governments all over the world are forced to react. If even the Pentagon can be hacked what hope is there for any business or individual to be protected from such insidious disruption? It is better to have the right people to be elected into the government than to have desperadoes or bandits running around without the slightest sense of responsibility to society. At least the government can be elected out if it is not doing its job. No corporation should be more powerful than the government because if it does it could only mean that corruption and other illegal means were being used to arrive at this situation. Just look at how the banking and oil industries have corrupted the fabric of the nation by being too big to fail? Only ignorant people will believe in the fantasy of a completely free Internet.
If the Google ship starts floundering you might see even more desperate attempts to scrape up money or stifle the competition…you might see calumny, bribery, vandalism, and extortion. Their ethics do not appear to be superior to those of a sexually frustrated teenage voyeur.
Sergei, it’s just the opposite. If I want my data kept private, I should have the right to do so and not have Google crawl all over it and sell it off.
Stop using Google.
No Google +
No GMail
No searching
No maps
Use Google analytic blockers on your web browsers.
All checked. 😉
Sergey Brin’s comment about Apple is like a crazy, nosy neighbor complaining about not knowing about what’s in a home because there are locks on the doors.
Apple should release Safari extensions for their mobile platform and preinstall AdBlocker by default.
That would shut Google up pretty quickly.
s/freedom/Google’s business model/ig