Is Google an amoral monopoly?

I have read with interest Henry Porter's scathing indictment of Google in yesterday's Observer, an article generating some heated discussion online. While I often enjoy his writings, I have to say that on this occasion he has written a thoroughly misinformed article that seems to conflate concepts and technologies. I won't get into the attack on Scribd as it is a site that I am unfamiliar with, but will concentrate on his views about Google (others have dealt with this point).

While I want to highlight specific errors and inconsistencies with the article, I believe that Porter is informed generally by a visceral dislike of authority, exemplified by today's article against data retention regulations. While I share some of his views with regards to civil liberties, I cannot help but suspect that in this instance he is barking up the wrong tree (I have always been amused by this English phrase, how does a dog bark at the wrong tree anyway? But I digress). Anyway, Porter's first dodgy argument comes when talking about Google's strategy against PRS by removing music videos from his site. He says:

"Google presents a far greater threat to the livelihood of individuals and the future of commercial institutions important to the community. One case emerged last week when a letter from Billy Bragg, Robin Gibb and other songwriters was published in the Times explaining that Google was playing very rough with those who appeared on its subsidiary, YouTube. When the Performing Rights Society demanded more money for music videos streamed from the website, Google reacted by refusing to pay the requested 0.22p per play and took down the videos of the artists concerned. It does this with impunity because it is dominant worldwide and knows the songwriters have nowhere else to go. Google is the portal to a massive audience: you comply with its terms or feel the weight of its boot on your windpipe."

This is a horrendous misrepresentation of the PRS-YouTube debate. Google is a business, and as such it has a right not to lose money every time a video is played. The music industry is asking for way too much money every time a video is played on YouTube, and Google has every right to remove such outlet for musicians if their demands are not sensible. YouTube provides a valuable service to artists by letting them reach an audience, and one might add, Google is entirely willing to pay for it. It is very telling that artists like Billy Bragg are vociferously complaining about Google's negotiating tactic, because they know that not having this service will be detrimental to their market exposure. Why should Google be expected to provide them with a valuable service and suffer financially from it? I for one believe that Google is entirely justified in calling PRS' bluff. Does Google hold disproportionate power? Maybe, but Google should not be expected to support flawed business models. Porter then goes on to say:

"Despite its diversification, Google is in the final analysis a parasite that creates nothing, merely offering little aggregation, lists and the ordering of information generated by people who have invested their capital, skill and time."

What a diabolical paragraph! This seems to imply that anyone who does not create content and simply offers an aggregating service is by definition a "parasite" that has done no investment whatsoever. Google has invested millions of dollars in creating a vast an complex infrastructure that allows users to access, create and aggregate content. This can be as valuable as the act of creating the content itself. I am writing this using a Google service, and have found some information using two other of its services: the search engine and newsreader. These are tangible, useful and valuable services that make it easier for content creators to get their message across. If Porter cannot see this as a non-parasitic function, then I am afraid that his arguments inhabit a sphere of wrongness that rationality cannot touch. The content industries are filled with aggregated service providers: publishers, distributors, retailers, hardware and portable media manufacturers, publicists, administrative staff, et cetera. Are all of these "parasites" as well? Porter continues:

"One of the chief casualties of the web revolution is the newspaper business, which now finds itself laden with debt (not Google's fault) and having to give its content free to the search engine in order to survive. Newspapers can of course remove their content but then their own advertising revenues and profiles decline. In effect they are being held captive and tormented by their executioner, who has the gall to insist that the relationship is mutually beneficial. Were newspapers to combine to take on Google they would be almost certainly in breach of competition law."

Now I think we come to the hidden reason behind the article. While Porter claims that Google is not to blame for the debt incurred by the newspaper industry (how kind of him to exculpate them of something nobody has accused them of), he seems to imply that Google is to blame for some of the printed media's woes. Firstly, newspapers are not forced to give their content for free, Google News searches and offers a small snippet of news articles, and sometimes also small pics from the original source, but the full article is still linked to, so that users can go to the source easily. This is an excellent service, and one that I use often. I cannot see what is the problem with allowing a search engine to index your content and make it available to a wider audience. Secondly, is Porter arguing that news sources could offer a similar service if they grouped together? Forgive me if I laugh at such a ridiculous notion.

"This particular 11-year-old has known nothing but success and does not understand the risks, skill and failure involved in the creation of original content, nor the delicate relationships that exist outside its own desires and experience. There is a brattish, clever amorality about Google that allows it to censor the pages on its Chinese service without the slightest self doubt, store vast quantities of unnecessary information about every Google search, and menace the delicate instruments of democratic scrutiny. And, naturally, it did not exercise Google executives that Street View not only invaded the privacy of millions and made the job of burglars easier but somehow laid claim to Britain's civic spaces. How gratifying to hear of the villagers of Broughton, Bucks, who prevented the Google van from taking pictures of their homes."

Wow! In one paragraph Porter has managed to simultaneously accuse Google of childish immaturity and fiendishly calculating greed. No mention that Google is compelled to follow Chinese law if it wants to have business there, just as it is compelled to follow anti-terror legislation in the West, some of which he complains about today. And we will simply ignore the fact that very few people have complained about Street View, and most of us are actually enjoying a very nice service. By the way, where is the evidence that burglars are using Google Street View to plan their dastardly misdeeds? Why applaud the technophobes and their mob-rule, pitchfork-wielding mentality?

I know that I am coming across as a Google apologist, but it really upsets me that an innovative company that offers millions of users valuable services that define our current Internet experience gets such an unfair treatment. I am indeed bothered by Google's market dominance, but that is a regulatory argument that we will have to explore in the near future. However, Mr Porter makes a wrong-headed attack on the search engine giant that does not further the necessary debate that we should be having.

Disclaimer: This post is brought to you by Blogger, a Google subsidiary, and FeedBurner, another Google service. You may have found it on Google's search engine, or followed a tweet (future Google company). Yes, there's nothing to be worried about...

Is technology making us stupid?

Here is a list of things I find self evident: pizzas are good, the colour of the sky as seen from the ground in the third planet of the star system Sol can be represented by the RGB hexadecimal code #87CEEB, and whenever a new technology is discovered someone will complain that it is making us stupid/it is unnatural/it should be banned.

Ever since the Internet came along, we have been witness to all sorts of indictments on its intellectual merits. Some are somewhat justified; for example, I believe text-speak to be detrimental to people's ability to communicate with one another (have you ever tried chatting with someone whose vocabulary extends to "OMFG u r stoopid"?) However, new technologies have made our life easier, and have made it possible to access amounts of information like never before. Recently I was re-arranging the books in an old book-case, and was amazed to discover an encyclopaedia, the decadent symbol of a bygone era before Wikipedia and Google.

It would seem like there are those who insist on flogging the line that the Internet is making us somewhat dumber. Take this article by Naomi Alderman in The Guardian. She says:

"And it's not just television that poses a threat to reading, it's the internet too. Of course, using the internet certainly demands literacy. But reading on the internet isn't the same as reading a book. Recent studies have indicated that online reading tends to break down in the face of "texts that require steady focus and linear attention". [...] The Greeks may have replaced their oral traditions with Plato and Aristotle but, though I love computer games, I don't feel that trading the reading culture for Guitar Hero is a fair swap."

While I tend to agree that reading is great, and that there are few things as enjoyable as a good novel, I am baffled by the protestations of the death of the book, and I for one do not feel sentimental or regretful about its eventually inevitable demise. The problem with such wide indictments of new technologies is that they tend to ignore a very simple fact: while we bibliophiles still love the printed word, we have to accept that the tide is turning away from writing, and towards a more rich and democratic experience of expression.

Allow me to formulate this idea a bit more. For centuries, the main manner of communication was the written word. Some few people could read, even fewer could write, and those who could do the former would have a disproportionate influence on the world. Every generation would rely on a few voices to tell its stories, share its dreams, and formulate its goals and ideas. However, when you think about it, this state of affairs is highly elitist. How many valid voices have been lost because they could not communicate to a wider audience? One could be callous and assume that if it cannot be written, then it is not worth it. I answer those with one name, Socrates. We know of his thoughts through Plato's writing (I will not enter the debate of whether Plato accurately conveyed his master's philosophies), and one has to think what would have happened if Plato had not been there to share his thoughts with us.

Similarly, I can think of many people I know whose ideas and understanding of the world seem to be sophisticated and astute, yet have never written a single paragraph worthy of the name. The business of publishing is also inherently elitist, those writing have to jump through several hoops to get their words printed, and even those which are good are read by not many people. Even in the age of the participatory web, those who write tend to be fewer than those who do not. How many voices are being lost to this tyranny of the typeface? Writing requires a special mindset and set of skills that are not shared by all. The fallacy of intellectualism in the last centuries has been to assume that only those with the knack for putting sentences together are worthy of attention. Thankfully, the 20th century has allowed other skills and art-forms to have growing importance in the way we think. The audiovisual arts have a lot of potential to convey complex ideas in efficient an manner. To my mind, I have yet to find a book that describes the political history of the last decade as well as Adam Curtis' excellent documentaries The Power of Nightmares and The Trap.

I recently read an article by Clive Thompson that makes a similar point. He commented that YouTube had the potential to become a new type of communication tool, implying its own rules and languages. He comments:

"What's happening to video is like what happened to word processing. Back in the '70s and early '80s, publishing was a rarefied, expert job. Then Apple's WYSIWYG interface made it drop-dead easy, enabling an explosion of weird new forms of micropublishing and zines. Laptop audio editing did the same thing, giving birth to the mashup and cut-and-paste subgenres of music. Then there's photo manipulation, once a rarefied propaganda technique. Photoshop made it a folk art. [...] Marshall McLuhan pointed out that whenever we get our hands on a new medium we tend to use it like older ones. Early TV broadcasts consisted of guys sitting around reading radio scripts because nobody had realized yet that TV could tell stories differently. It's the same with much of today's webcam video; most people still try to emulate TV and film."

I think there is something true in these words. We should not feel nostalgic about the loss of one form of communication, after all, people still write (you are reading this, are you not?) We should be enthusiastic about the vast range of new technologies that allow us to be able to express ourselves even if we are not able to write that well. Clarity of thought can take many shapes, why should we believe that it can only present itself in black and white?