Google Is Now Officially Evil

Image by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ via Flickr

Eric Schmidt threw out some provocative one-liners at yesterday’s Techonomy conference, and based on what I read in the tea leaves, Google has inched into evilness.

The backdrop for this is the apparent agreement between Google and Verizon to scuttle near-term hopes for net nuetrality (see here).

And then Schmidt’s stand-up act: beware billionaires describing technology as culturally neutral. Baloney. There is a strong conservative streak built into the web, which is why so many people lose their jobs for speaking out on websites, and why over 70% of recruiters have opted not to hire candidates based on information found in social networks, like Facebook. This is a steady, corrosive force, and it inexorably excludes edgy lifestyles, and ‘dangerous’ or unpopular political stances from being openly advocated by anyone that needs employment.

He starts by saying that there is a data explosion going on, with more information being created everyday than all of human civilization through 2000. Yawn. We all know it’s old porn being turned into HD, Eric.

Then the fear starts to creep in. Apparently, Google can now predict where you are going to be based on messaging and location information. They can predict disease, personal behavior, and crises. And then, he responds to the idea that information can be misused for criminal or anti-social purposes:

The only way to manage this is true transparency and no anonymity. In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it.

via Marshall Kirkpatrick

Let me start by saying that what governments might ‘demand’ has little relationship with the principles of a liberal, open society. There are valid, rational reasons for many activities to remain anonymous, however much repressive governments or nosey business would like to know everything about citizens and employees. That’s one of the wonderful attributes of paper money: it is anonymous. As a result, your romantic tryst, your Saturday night poker game, and the $20 to the illegal immigrant who cleans your car remain your own business.

But Schmidt takes the side of the neo-cons:

True anonymity is too dangerous.

So, we are headed to a Brave New World, an Orwellian nightmare where Google will work on behalf of the government — ‘who will demand it’ — to reveal our past actions and future predilections, because they can.

I don’t think that is a good enough reason.

Note: I am an advocate for publicy replacing privacy as a social norm online. But that is a matter of personal choice, of deciding how and in what way to share information based on social benefits and inducements. But publicy has to be developed in the context of circles of trust — where social scale leads to the damping out of details as information moves farther from the source.

Instead of telling us that anonymity is dead, Google could be announcing tools for the social scaled disclosure of information, and techniques for information erosion, as a counter to the dangers of societal repression.

related articles

• Soft-Core Net Neutrality: Is Google’s Verizon Deal Evil? (themoderatevoice.com)
• Another load of Schmidt (broadstuff.com)
• Google’s Schmidt Doubts Company Will Get Into “Significant” Gaming (techcrunch.com)
• Google CEO Schmidt: “People Aren’t Ready for the Technology Revolution” (readwriteweb.com)
• Weinberger: The Opposite Of ‘Open’ Is ‘Theirs’ (stoweboyd.com)
• Web Culture: Individuality, Belonging, And Scalar Freedom (stoweboyd.com)
• Evil? (buzzmachine.com)