The AOL-Google affair
21 December '05 - 09:00. Category: default
A number of bloggers seem to agree with the conventional wisdom expressed in the mainstream press that Google made a smart move by signing a new deal to do business with AOL. In two stories today, the Wall Street Journal seems quite effusive in the way its journalists uncritically applaud the deal.
Similarly, a search on Technorati.com discloses that many bloggers approve of the new venture. (I suspect a search on google would reveal the same as well). Some of those who approve of this deal may do so because the deal scuttles Microsoft's attempt to generate more revenue from the Internet by selling its search engine service to AOL. That point notwithstanding, I am befuddled with the idea that AOL is worth Google's 1 billion dollar investment. For one, it was not so long ago that Time Warner echoed plans to cut its losses by dumping AOL completely.
According to the Journal, the chief executive of Google stated that he "had the opinion for a long time that AOL was undervalued." Undervalued? Huh? On what planet? (Of course, the comment comes from the chief executive of a company, itself, with a hideously overvalued market cap.)
To be clear, I have nothing against Google being google. I use the search engine too. But, I do think that reality should play a more serious role in e-commerce than it appears to be doing currently.
I suspect that Time Warner will benefit from this deal more than either AOL or Google. Although you might say that if Time Warner benefits, so does AOL; yet, this is not necessarily so. First, Time Warner has yet to integrate AOL into any real synergies from Time Warner's cable and media businesses. In addition, there is little doubt that Time Warner is still smarting from the huge losses to its stock caused by the Time Warner-AOL merger in the first place. What is more, this deal does not enhance any real synergy between Time Warner's traditional media empire and AOL. In fact, the Google deal is focused quite directly on AOL.com, not something more significant to AOL's primary revenue generating business as an Intertnet Service Provider.
Besides making dubious strategic business sense for Google, the AOL-Google deal also seems to raise the same fears of market power and control that many associate with Microsoft. As a result of this billion dollar partnership, will AOL receive privileged advertising space in Google search results that competing ISPs will not have access to? Will Google begin giving precedent to links under AOL.com or other AOL businesses when search results are returned? If you think this will not happen, why? What would prevent it? How would you know your search results are not "biased" or misleading? I am withholding my judgment on the AOL-Google deal until we seem where this is going.
U.S. Surveillance of us
19 December '05 - 09:34. Category: default
There are a number of derivative news stories about the New York Times story about a secret program authorized by the president permits the NSA to spy without a warrant on those residing inside the United States.
One perplexing aspect of this story is what is meant by the repeated refrain monitoring "international telephone calls and international e-mail messages." If cyberspace has no borders, what is an international e-mail message? Indeed, even if the idea that cyberspace has no borders is rejected, the question remains.
With the use of cell phones that you can carry nearly anywhere globally and the increasing use of VOIP (Internet telephony), I am also unsure of what is meant by international phone call. Under both circumstances, I can imagine facts where the designation of the message or telephone call as "international" would be at least debatable or undeniably wrong. This may mean that the surveillance must include at least some purely domestic messages or calls. Yes?
Unraveling Privacy
16 December '05 - 08:50. Category: default
Are Americans incoherent in their view of the expectations for the protection of privacy? Do we expect that our private matters should be protected by the right of privacy, yet fail to respect the privacy of others?
Katherine Rosman has written an engaging piece in today’s
Wall Street Journal (p. W1) on “Leak Chic,” which is an increasing phenomenon where Americans in blogs, e-mail, discussion websites, and traditional media seem to be exposing the very type of private matters that were deemed so offensive to some Americans in the 19th Century that the civil right of privacy was given birth. Rosman’s article conveys some sense that it is not just “the government” that is assaulting privacy interests; increasingly, our desire for exposure in the 21st Century is unraveling the values underlying the right of privacy on abroad and widespread scale. This unraveling is aided by technology like blogs and inapproriately forwarded e-mail, but I am unsure of what is causing it. My best guess is that there is some degree of hypocrisy befalling some of us.
See,
The Right of Privacy (Warren and Brandeis)
Wikipedia's open-source label attacked
10 December '05 - 20:10. Category: default
Recently, Wikipedia has been under attack...even its open-source label and free culture credential is now being
questioned. Are the attacks the sour grapes of a wicked scandal or does Wikipedia lack accountability? The fact that Wikipedia contains errors is an important factor to mainstream media ttypes who have recently found disfavor with the public encyclopedia. I agree that Wikipedia has abundant errors, but that is not surprising to anyone likely to use it and who is familiar with how the information is posted on the site in the first place. One open source software precept certainly applies to Wikipedia: with enough eyeballs, the problem of solving errors is trivial (paraphrase of Linus Torvalds). No doubt, if someone is defamed or portrayed inaccurately, the victim is likely to want the matter redressed, but this is so regardless of whether the inaccuracy is posted on Wikipedia or
USATODAY. Mainstream newspapers (and even broadcast news) sometimes get their facts wrong. Should USATODAY be shut down because of its previous errors? The attacks on Wikipedia seem unwarranted, and this is particularly so by the ironic Free Speech advocates called the media.
Virgin Conception Research
06 December '05 - 06:38. Category: default
The news regarding recent developments in "virgin conception" research seems to be passing below the radar of public debate in the U.S. This may be so because an aspect of the research seems to be primarily occurring in the UK. At any rate, the potential of human reproduction without sperm warrants much more public debate than I suspect is occuring; this is so not because of the usual arguments offered by prolife supporters or those by medical treatment advocates, but because the technology of stimulating a human egg to divide like an embryo without male sperm raises profoundly unique and important questions about the potential evolutionary path of the human species.
The BBC
Open Source overtakes Microsoft
01 December '05 - 00:59. Category: default
For some high-traffic websites, Firefox, the open source software web browser, is showing greater popularity than Internet Explorer among web surfers! If these reports are accurate or at least reflective of a strong trend, this is going to be big news indeed.
"The word landslide doesn't even begin to describe the most recent web browser usage statistics we ran here..."