Will History be a Casualty of an “Ecommony”? If info is free who will pay to archive it for posterity?
March 3, 2009
Kudos to Eric Auchard’s Reuters column for triggering a whole new line of thinking in his brilliant piece: “The Black Hole, how the web devours history.” His column is a must read for anyone who cares about history and historical archives, because it brings to life the real-world problems of ensuring that key historical information is permanently archived and retrievable via the Internet.
The more I noodled on Mr. Auchard’s thought-provoking premise, I concluded that the origin of this devoured-history problem is not technology, which many might prematurely conclude, but the ”information wants to be free” ethos of the digital commons.
- That’s because this problem would not be hard for technology to solve, IF it was a priority to solve. The fact that archiving history on the web is a big problem, tells us it is not a technology or financial priority to solve. This prompts the important question – why is historical archiving not an Internet priority?
- The real reason is that if “information wants to be free” — then who pays for the cost of archiving it?
- Practically, “free” information means advertising supported. However, since historical archives may be the longest of ”long tail“ Internet content, what advertiser is going to want to advertise the accessing of extremely diverse historical minutia?
To build on Mr. Auchard’s outstanding insight, could Google, the increasingly dominant repository of links to find the “world’s information,” turn out to be the modern version of the Ancient Library of Alexandria, which as the dominant repository of the world’s books at the time of Christ, ultimately was largely lost forever to humankind via fires?
The important point here is that the ”information wants to be free” ethos and the advertising-supported model for Internet content is not only deficient to fund the creation of quality content or journalism, but it is also deficient in funding the archiving of important historical information.
The screaming takeaway here is that if the most successful company in monetizing the access to content in the world, Google, only earns a paltry ~$2.60 per user/viewer per month in the ”ecommony“ (which is twenty times less than companies earn to produce, distribute, and archive quality content offline) where is the money going to come from to archive history on the Internet?
Bottom line:
Thanks to Mr. Auchard’s brilliant insight, we learn that there is yet another dimension of public life that the Internet does not respect — history.
Add that to the Internet’s well known lack of respect for property and lack of respect for privacy and a very disturbing pattern emerges — the “information wants to be free” ethos – trashes property rights, expectations of privacy and … history. What does it respect?
The Post Office Does “Deep Package Inspections” Without Privacy or Free Speech Problems
March 3, 2009
Free Press in its latest report: “Deep Packet Inspection: The end of the Internet as we know it?” continues to mischaracterize “reasonable network management” practices (that ensure quality of service and filter out harmful traffic like spam, viruses, and other malware) as bad practices and misuse of technology that threatens users’ privacy and freedom of speech.
It is inaccurate and unfair to mischaracterize reasonable network management this way.
The Free Press report uses a common analogy about “deep packet inspection” (DPI) technology. It analogizes that use of DPI technology by an ISP would be like the post office going beyond reading the address of a letter and looking inside the letter to read the private contents.
- This partial analogy is designed to lead people to believe that DPI is only a privacy-invading technology without any merit or useful function.
Let’s explore the letter and post office analogy more fairly and accurately.
- Most people know that letters and packages are screened/filtered by the Post Office, FedEx, UPS etc. for harmful or illegal materials.
- Since it is illegal for people to mail: firearms, explosives, illegal drugs, harmful chemicals or biological agents, etc. these companies routinely screen and filter these packages with x-rays and other sensing technologies to interdict these illegal and harmful packages in transit before they can do harm.
- Given Free Press’ strong opposition to DPI’s potential for invading privacy, it is curious why Free Press does not acknowledge, or object to, the Post Office routinely employing “deep package inspection” technologies.
- It is also curious why Free Press has never accused (to my knowledge) the Post Office or the delivery companies of using their deep package inspection technologies to invade users’ privacy or limit free speech.
- Most people also know or assume that communications networks routinely filter and interdict spam, viruses, malware, denial of service attacks and other illegal and harmful uses of Internet networks.
- It is curious that in discussing “deep packet inspection” Free Press almost exclusively characterized it in a negative light and ignores the postive and necessary aspects of deep packet inspection technology.
- Finally, it is curious that Free Press and others that oppose reasonable network management do not acknowlege that broadband companies (telecom, wireless and cable) companies have long been subject to strict privacy laws (sections: 222, 551 & te ECPA).
In short, an objective and straighforward analysis of DPI technology shows that it has many legitimate and important benefits. Common sense also indicates that broadband companies are no more likely to incorrectly use legitimate inspection technologies than any physical delivery service.
Defending Amazon Kindle’s Reasonable Network Management
March 2, 2009
To offer its innovative and property-protecting e-book/e-newspaper Kindle service, Amazon engages in reasonable network management of its Amazon-branded Whispernet wireless broadband access service.
- Amazon’s Kindle service blocks consumers’ access to all content that does not have a commercial relationship with Amazon, and it does not allow open, neutral or non-discriminatory access to the content of consumers’ choice on its leased network.
- Amazon’s network management is reasonable because it enables the offering of an innovative, secure, quality, affordable service for consumers.
- Amazon’s unfettered freedom to choose the business model that best suited the Kindle was central to Amazon’s breakthrough innovation.
Important questions:
First, is “closed” innovation out-performing?
No one should miss the irony that two of the most-innovative and most-in-demand consumer electronics that leverage broadband access – the Amazon Kindle and the Apple iPhone — are not considered “open” or “neutral,” but largely “closed” devices. This runs directly counter to Silicon Valley’s PR and political orthodoxy that “openness” is a necessary pre-condition for innovation and that closed systems, or “walled gardens” like the Amazon Kindle and the Apple iPhone almost by definition cannot be innovative because they are not designed to be neutral, end-to-end dumb-pipe friendly products and services.
- Could these highest-of-profile examples be evidence that innovation is not necessarily driven by openness as Silicon Valley orthodoxy dictates?
- Could it be that innovation is best fostered when there is no Government mandate where innovation should or should not be allowed to occur?
- Could it be that the unfettered freedom of innovators to choose an open, closed, or hybrid model is a key to promoting real innovation?
Second, is Amazon de facto endorsing a property-driven-economy over a propertyless-digital-commons or “ecommony?”
It is important to note that Amazon recently decided to allow e-book property owners to control the enablement of the Kindle’s text-to-audio feature in order to protect their copyrights rather than be open/neutral and allow consumers complete freedom to access the content of their choice.
- This is a significant precedent because Amazon had a choice between siding with open/neutral view where consumers should get access to the content of their choice without permission or payment, but instead chose to side with those who produce valuable content that can be offered via payment or subscription.
- In a word, Amazon sided with the economy over the “ecommony.”
This adds momentum to Cablevision’s recent decision to no longer give Newsday’s content away for free on the Web. The Kindle also offers blogs a new subscription revenue stream – additional proof that Silicon Valley’s PR and political orthodoxy “information wants to be free” is under significant assault.
Third, how does Amazon square its non-neutral reasonable network management of its Kindle network with its continued support of net neutrality regulation?
Any reasonable interpretation of proposed net neutrality/open Internet strictures would not allow Amazon’s non-neutral, anti-openness operation and business model for its Kindle access network. How does Amazon square this circle?
- Is it counting on special treatment, an Amazon-specific exemption/earmark from any potential net neutrality requirement?
- Is it arguing that the Government should abandon its longstanding technology neutrality policy and apply net neutrality non-neutrally to only one type of Internet access, competitive broadband facilities and not to dominant Internet access applications like Amazon’s, Google’s or eBay’s?
- Or is Amazon simply arguing, do as I say not as I do?
Bottom line:
I strongly defend Amazon’s reasonable network management of its Amazon-branded wireless broadband access network.
The benefits of reasonable network management are numerous, essential and not limited to the benefits listed below:
- Enabling innovative business models, products, services, features, etc.
- Enabling quality of service guarantees;
- Meeting the diversity of needs, wants and means of consumers for different prices, speeds, features, and offerings like mobility; and
- Protecting consumers from Internet pollution and harm.
