{"id":4524,"date":"2014-05-11T12:21:25","date_gmt":"2014-05-11T18:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=4524"},"modified":"2014-05-12T10:49:46","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T16:49:46","slug":"a-complicated-courtship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=4524","title":{"rendered":"A complicated courtship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"globes\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In early April, two articles appeared in leading European newspapers \u2014 “Fear of Google<\/a>” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung<\/i>, and “Google, or the Road to Serfdom<\/a>” in Le Monde<\/em> \u2014 criticizing the consolidation\u00a0of commercial and cultural power in the hands of Google and other large Internet companies. Shortly\u00a0afterward, Eric Schmidt offered a rebuttal<\/a>, in the form of an open letter to Europe published in FAZ. “On a continent in search of economic hope, the Internet represents the main motor of economic growth,” he wrote. On the cultural side of the equation, he went on, the Net was due equal praise: “Around the world, people admire Europe\u2019s art, food, and lifestyle. The Internet makes these cultural treasures available to all.” <\/span><\/p>\n

Rejecting any\u00a0further regulation of his company, Schmidt argued\u00a0that the online market should be allowed to develop unfettered.\u00a0<\/span>He\u00a0pointed\u00a0to Google’s recent advertising pact with Germany’s Axel Springer as a model for the kind of cooperative business approach that he believes will keep\u00a0Europe from becoming\u00a0an “innovation desert”:<\/p>\n

It was a complicated courtship. For years, German publisher Axel Springer challenged us on issue after issue, from copyright to competition. I travelled to Germany numerous times to meet Springer executives to propose a different path – profitable partnership. I argued that through innovation we could build new business models and achieve mutual benefit from emerging mobile and social technologies. Late last year, we walked down the aisle and signed a multi-year partnership for automated advertising, covering both web and mobile. …<\/p>\n

While many other European publishers including such marquee names as the Telegraph and the Guardian have signed similar partnerships, some publishers in Europe still seem to believe that the best way forward lies in calling for heavy-handed regulation, pushing for new copyright charges on links to their articles and calling for antitrust action against companies such as Facebook, Amazon and us. …\u00a0If adopted, this approach creates serious economic dangers. Above all, it risks creating an innovation desert in Europe. Some companies will leave and, worse still, others will never get off the ground – blocked by rules designed to protect incumbents. I am convinced that a better, more prosperous model exists through cooperation and commercial agreements [such as]\u00a0our path-breaking advertising deal with Axel Springer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a long, remarkable reply to Schmidt, also published in FAZ a week later, Axel Springer’s chief executive, Mathias D\u00f6pfner,\u00a0offered<\/a> a very different view of the “profitable partnership” between his company and Google:<\/p>\n

We are afraid of Google. I must state this very clearly and frankly, because few of my colleagues dare do so publicly. And as the biggest among the small, perhaps it is also up to us to be the first to speak out in this debate. You wrote it yourself in your book: \u201cWe believe that modern technology platforms, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, are even more powerful than most people realize (…), and what gives them power is their ability to grow \u2013 specifically, their speed to scale. Almost nothing, short of a biological virus, can scale as quickly, efficiently or aggressively as these technology platforms and this makes the people who build, control, and use them powerful too.\u201d\u00a0…\u00a0In the long term I\u2019m not so sure about the users. Power is soon followed by powerlessness.\u00a0And this is precisely the reason why we now need to have this discussion in the interests of the long-term integrity of the digital economy\u2019s ecosystem. This applies to competition, not only economic, but also political. It concerns our values, our understanding of the nature of humanity, our worldwide social order and, from our own perspective, the future of Europe. …\u00a0It is we the people who have to decide whether or not we want what you are asking of us \u2013 and what price we are willing to pay for it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

D\u00f6pfner went on to question\u00a0Google’s self-image as a cultural hero:<\/p>\n

On the Internet, in the beautiful colorful Google world, so much seems to be free of charge: from search services up to journalistic offerings. In truth we are paying with our behavior \u2013\u00a0 with the predictability and commercial exploitation of our behavior. Anyone who has a car accident today, and mentions it in an e-mail, can receive an offer for a new car from a manufacturer on his mobile phone tomorrow. Terribly convenient. Today, someone surfing high-blood-pressure web sites, who automatically betrays his notorious sedentary lifestyle through his Jawbone fitness wristband, can expect a higher health insurance premium the day after tomorrow. Not at all convenient. Simply terrible.\u00a0It is possible that it will not take much longer before more and more people realize that the currency of his or her own behavior exacts a high price: the freedom of self-determination. And that is why it is better and cheaper to pay with something very old fashioned \u2013 namely\u00a0 money.<\/p>\n

Google is the world\u2019s most powerful bank \u2013 but dealing only in behavioral currency. Nobody capitalizes on their knowledge about us as effectively as Google. This is impressive and dangerous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the end of the month, Harvard business professor and Berkman Center associate Shoshana Zuboff provided<\/a> another perspective on the exchange between Schmidt and\u00a0D\u00f6pfner:<\/p>\n

Six years ago I asked Eric Schmidt what corporate innovations Google was putting in place to ensure that its interests were aligned with its end users. Would it betray their trust? Back then his answer stunned me. He and Google\u2019s founders control the super-voting class B stock. This allows them, he explained, to make decisions without regard to short-term pressure from Wall Street. Of course, it also insulates them from every other kind of influence. There was no wrestling with the creation of an inclusive, trustworthy, and transparent governance system.\u00a0 There was no struggle to institutionalize scrutiny and feedback.\u00a0 Instead Schmidt\u2019s answer was the quintessence of absolutism: “trust me; I know best.\u201d At that moment I knew I was in the presence of something new and dangerous whose effects reached beyond narrow economic contests and into the heart of everyday life.<\/p>\n

Mr. Schmidt\u2019s open letter to Europe shows evidence of such absolutism. Democratic oversight is characterized as “heavy-handed regulation.\u201d\u00a0 The “Internet\u201d, “Web\u201d,\u00a0 and “Google\u201d are referenced interchangeably, as if Goggle\u2019s interests stand for the entire Web and Internet. That\u2019s a magician\u2019s sleight of hand intended to distract from the real issue. Google\u2019s absolutist pursuit of its interests is now regarded by many as responsible for the Web\u2019s fading prospects as an open information platform in which participants can agree on rules, rights, and choice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“We are beyond the realm of economics here,” wrote Zuboff. “This is not merely a conversation about free\u00a0 markets; it\u2019s a conversation about free people”:<\/p>\n

We often hear that our privacy rights have been eroded and secrecy has grown. But that way of framing things obscures what\u2019s really at stake. Privacy hasn\u2019t been eroded. It\u2019s been expropriated.\u00a0…\u00a0Instead of many people having some privacy rights, nearly all the rights have been concentrated in the hands of a few.\u00a0 On the one hand, we have lost the ability to choose what we keep secret, and what we share. On the other, Google, the NSA, and others in the new zone have accumulated privacy rights. How? Most of their rights have come from taking ours without asking. But they also manufactured new rights for themselves, the way a forger might print currency.\u00a0 They assert a right to privacy with respect to their surveillance tactics and then exercise their choice to keep those tactics secret.<\/p>\n

Finally – and this is key – the new concentration of privacy rights is institutionalized in the automatic undetectable functions of a global infrastructure that most of the world\u2019s people also happen to think is essential for basic social participation. This turns ordinary life into the daily renewal of a 21st century Faustian pact.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A complicated courtship, indeed. Read the whole exchange. It’s fascinating.<\/p>\n

Image: Roberto Baca<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In early April, two articles appeared in leading European newspapers \u2014 “Fear of Google” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and “Google, or the Road to Serfdom” in Le Monde \u2014 criticizing the consolidation\u00a0of commercial and cultural power in the hands of Google and other large Internet companies. Shortly\u00a0afterward, Eric Schmidt offered a rebuttal, in the form […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4524"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4545,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524\/revisions\/4545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}