If Google's Upstart Competitors Aren't Afraid Of Google, Why Is Washington Upset?

from the it's-all-political dept

With Eric Schmidt in DC today to be grilled by a Senate commission about antitrust issues, it's interesting to see that Rich Skrenta, the founder/CEO of an upstart competing search engine, Blekko, come right out and tell DC to keep its hands off Google:

We don’t need federal intervention to level the playing field with Google. Innovation and competition are far more powerful instruments to battle companies that have grown powerful and influential. Which has been more detrimental to Microsoft's business? The lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice in the 90s, or the innovative products Apple has brought to the marketplace?

The success of Google should be applauded on Capitol Hill, not derided.

Let’s let entrepreneurs, technology and good old-fashioned innovation deal with Google. Consumers will always be the winners in that scenario.

If a company is holding back innovation through market control, I'll be the first to worry about it, but I'm at a loss to see where Google's choices have directly harmed consumers. It's nice to see Skrenta making this point when it would be easy to score a cheap political point by jumping on the bandwagon. No doubt that a broken up Google would present an opportunity for Blekko to take more marketshare -- but real entrepreneurs know that getting the government to attack your competitors is no way to build a truly innovative company.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, eric schmidt, rich skrenta
Companies: blekko, google

Being Concerned With Free Speech Implications Of PROTECT IP Does Not Mean You Think You're Above The Law

from the oh-come-on dept

Wow. In the legacy entertainment industry's latest "you're either with us or against us" mentality, it appears that expressing concern about the free speech implications of bills like PROTECT IP means you're a horrible, horrible person. Both the MPAA and RIAA are quite upset about Eric Schmidt coming out against PROTECT IP and saying that the impact on free speech would be disastrous. Both responses are so sickeningly disingenuous, it really makes you wonder how out of touch they are.

Let's start with the RIAA's statement:

"This is baffling. As a legitimate company, Google has a responsibility to not benefit from criminal activity. In substance and spirit, this contradicts the recent testimony of Google's General Counsel that the company takes copyright theft seriously and was willing to step up to the plate in a cooperative and serious way."

Um. Except that nothing in what Schmidt said actually contradicted Kent Walkers speech, nor did he say they don't take copyright infringement (not theft guys) seriously. He was expressing very legitimate concerns about the free speech implications.

On to the MPAA's statement, which echoes the RIAAs, but is a little more fleshed out:

In April, Google senior vice president and general counsel Kent Walker testified before Congress that 'Google supports developing effective policy and technology tools to combat large-scale commercial infringement.' That’s exactly what the PROTECT IP Act is designed to do -- it creates a narrowly-drawn, carefully constructed solution to the threat to American jobs and America's economy, a solution that protects and strengthens our right to free speech. As constitutional law expert Floyd Abrams wrote, '[c]opyright violations are not protected by the First Amendment.'

This is really shameful how the MPAA twists the debate. First of all, the PROTECT IP does not effectively combat large-scale commercial infringement at all. That's just wishful thinking. The actual infringement will continue. Second, there is no evidence that it will support American jobs or the economy. In fact, the reverse is almost certainly true, as these kinds of laws will harm large parts of the internet that enable new jobs.

But the really sickening part is the Floyd Abrams quote. While it is entirely true that copyright violation is not protected by the First Amendment that's not what Schmidt or anyone else raising these issues are concerned about. No one -- not Schmidt, not us -- is arguing that copyright infringement is protected by the First Amendment. We're saying that this tool will be used against non-infringing and perfectly legal speech. And that's not a theoretical concern. We've already seen it happen multiple times with the existing ICE domain seizures, in which blogs and sites that were not violating the law were seized.

That's the concern.

Furthermore, as Schmidt made clear in his statement, he was also noting that once you justify the censorship of some speech just because you're trying to stop infringement, you open the door to much more censorship of speech. Traditionally, the First Amendment caselaw has been clear: if you're going to strike against illegal speech, you have to very narrowly focus on just that speech. PROTECT IP does not do that. It casts a wide net. But, once you have that door open, saying that it's okay to shut down some legitimate speech in an effort to stop some others, that will only expand.

Is Eric Schmidt really suggesting that if Congress passes a law and President Obama signs it, Google wouldn’t follow it? As an American company respected around the world, it’s unfortunate that, at least according to its executive chairman’s comments, Google seems to think it’s above America’s laws.

Oh, come on! Of course that's not what Schmidt is saying and the MPAA is being obnoxiously disingenuous in suggesting otherwise. He's not saying they're "above America's laws." He says that the RIAA/MPAA-written laws should not be above the Constitution. That is, these laws should not violate the First (or in other cases the Fourth) Amendment. By saying that Google would fight, he doesn't mean ignore, he means challenging the Constitutionality of these laws in court.

Sad that the MPAA has so little actual substance behind its arguments that it's forced to blatantly mislead like that. Typical, but sad.

Filed Under: copyright, eric schmidt, free speech, protect ip
Companies: google, mpaa, riaa

Google Points Out That PROTECT IP Would Be A 'Disastrous Precedent' For Free Speech

from the good-for-google dept

While there have been a a couple of politicians speaking out against the very questionable PROTECT IP Act, we hadn't heard much from various companies that would be seriously impacted by the law. Thankfully, they're starting to speak up, starting with Google. Eric Schmidt warned that passing PROTECT IP would set a "disastrous precedent" for free speech, and that Google would fight against it passing, and suggested the company would fight the law in court if it did pass:

"I would be very, very careful if I were a government about arbitrarily [implementing] simple solutions to complex problems," he said. "So, 'let's whack off the DNS'. Okay, that seems like an appealing solution but it sets a very bad precedent because now another country will say 'I don't like free speech so I'll whack off all those DNSs' -- that country would be China.

"It doesn't seem right. I would be very, very careful about that stuff. If [the UK government] do it the wrong way it could have disastrous precedent setting in other areas."

Of course, the problem here is that those in favor of PROTECT IP don't seem to understand the technology that they're regulating. So they don't realize that they're trying to create a "simple solution to complex problems," and don't recognize that they're effectively breaking the internet and infringing on free speech rights. It's not because they don't like free speech. It's because they don't understand what they're doing, and lobbyists for the entertainment industry insist this is needed to "fight piracy." The problem is that this won't "fight piracy" and will have massive unintended consequences. It's good that Google is willing to make this an issue.

Filed Under: eric schmidt, free speech, protect ip
Companies: google

When Your CEO Suggests Moving In Response To Privacy Questions, Time For A New CEO

from the out-of-touch dept

Yikes. There are plenty of reasons why Google's Street View offering is not the privacy nightmare that some people are trying to turn it into. It's a public view of things that anyone can see. It's also static and way out of date. But, Google's going to run into problems if it keeps letting CEO Eric Schmidt comment on the various privacy concerns people are raising. While we were among those who mocked the ridiculously over-exaggerated anti-Google video made by the group Consumer Watchdog, that tried to portray Eric Schmidt as a creepy old man spying on everything you do, Schmidt himself isn't doing the company any favors lately. We already had mentioned his bizarre idea that kids might change their names upon becoming adults in the future, but Schmidt just keeps on making rather creepy statements about privacy that suggests someone totally out of touch with what people are actually complaining about.

John Paczkowski has a list of Schmidt's rather tone-deaf responses to privacy questions lately:

• Addressed criticisms of Google's stance on privacy by saying, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
• Claimed people want Google to "tell them what they should be doing next."
• Said of Google, "We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about."
• Said this: "One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that."
• Suggested name changes to protect adults from the Web's record of their youthful indiscretions.
• Said this: "What we're really doing is building an augmented version of humanity, building computers to help humans do the things they don't do well better."

And, then, there's the latest, in which he claims that one reason why Street View isn't so bad is because you could just move, claiming (not quite accurately) that Street View only visits every place once. But that's unrelated to the issue. Street View isn't telling people where you live, so whether or not you live there or if you move is sort of meaningless. There are plenty of reasonable ways to respond to such a question, but it seems like each time Schmidt opens his mouth about these issues, he sounds incredibly out of touch and totally disconnected from the thing that people are actually complaining about.

Filed Under: creepy, eric schmidt, privacy
Companies: google

Consumer 'Watchdog' Anti-Google Video Just Part Of A Stunt To Sell Books?

from the who's-watching-those-consumers dept

There was all sorts of news coverage recently about the group Consumer Watchdog creating a video that mocked Google's Eric Schmidt for not caring about your privacy -- though, which did so by getting all sorts of basic facts wrong and while relying on the "evil" Google Analytics for its own site (though, the group claims it's been trying to get rid of it, and has tried to spin the story into a claim that shows "how hard it is to escape Google on the Internet." Actually, it's not that hard at all. The whole thing seemed pretty silly, and clearly a stupid promotional stunt.

It seems that folks associated with Consumer Watchdog's Jamie Court are perfectly willing to admit that the whole thing is a crass stunt to help Jamie sell more of his new book. They've sent over a letter to us, hyping up Court's book, offering to send us a copy, and linking the recently released book to the "stunt" in Times Square, which they blatantly admit was a stunt. So, now, who's going to watch over Consumer Watchdog to make sure it's not engaged in questionable motives in its own activities? I'm all for people actually looking out for consumer rights, but sometimes I wonder who appointed these folks as our "watchdogs?"

Filed Under: eric schmidt, jamie court, privacy, stunts
Companies: consumer watchdog, google

Will Kids Change Their Names As They Become Adults To Hide From Their Google Permanent Record?

from the modern-problems dept

Nearly five years ago, we wondered what would happen when the generation that grew up with the internet and social media started running for office. The idea was that when you're kids, you often do silly things that you regret later in life. In the past, those things fade away as memories. However, these days, many of them are now recorded for posterity and easily findable on a search engine. We've wondered if this will lead more people to brush off youthful indiscretions, but there's another possibility as well. Perhaps it will become more standard for kids to change their names as they reach adulthood. That, at least, is the suggestion made by Eric Schmidt in discussing how society hasn't yet come to grips with a world in which so much data is recorded and available. Of course, it's a pretty simple database mapping to link one to the other, so I do wonder whether or not that really makes a difference for other than the most basic of searches.

Still, I often find these discussions by adults to be a bit condescending towards kids. Yes, kids do all sorts of silly things, some of which they may regret later, it's not as if everything they do is regrettable. On top of that, I tend to believe kids are a lot smarter than many adults make them out to be. While there may be many things that make adults cringe, I would bet a lot more kids understand what they should avoid doing online than adults give them credit for.

Filed Under: children, eric schmidt, names, privacy
Companies: google

Eric Schmidt On How To Encourage Innovation

from the don't-see-anything-about-stronger-copyright-laws dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in Google CEO Eric Schmidt's recent op-ed on how to encourage more innovation in the US. The suggestions make perfect sense and there's nothing in there that I disagree with. He says Congress should encourage more competition, and be careful not to pass legislation that favors incumbents over upstarts. This is absolutely true, but the likelihood of that happening is pretty dismal, given how big a role big company lobbyists have in drafting legislation, and given how campaign contributions work today. He also talks about more open information access and the importance of keeping talented skilled workers here, rather than pushing them to other countries.

Of course, it's notable that he says nothing about intellectual property. I'm guessing this is on purpose. Technically, the lever that the Constitution supposedly gives Congress to encourage innovation is intellectual property policy -- but these days, that clearly conflicts with Schmidt's first point about not passing laws that favor incumbents. These days, that's exactly what copyright and patent policy have become: protectionist measures to prop up incumbents at the expense of real innovators.

So, on that note, it's really refreshing to see recommendations for what Congress can do to encourage innovation that doesn't include ratcheting up IP laws -- though, it's disappointing that he didn't go so far as to suggest moving those laws in the other direction.

Filed Under: competition, eric schmidt, information, innovation

Schmidt's 'Don't Do Stuff You Want To Keep Private' Sounds Like 'If You Aren't Doing Anything Wrong...'

from the you-sure-you-meant-that? dept

Over a decade ago, Sun founder Scott McNealy famously said "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." Apparently former McNealy protege, Eric Schmidt is now taking the same basic view in his current job as CEO of Google. In a recent interview he suggested that people pushing for privacy are the one's at fault:

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

This sounds suspiciously like a reheated version of "if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to worry about," that's trotted out by law enforcement types when pushing for stronger laws to violate individuals' privacy. It's an odd statement for someone like Schmidt to make, especially given the incredible level of scrutiny given to Google for the view it has into people's lives. To folks who are worried about such things, it sounds positively dismissive, which isn't the position that Google should be cultivating with those who are concerned right now. Furthermore, given Schmidt's own thin skin when reporters posted some personal info (found via Google to prove a point) that resulted in a "ban" on talking to reporters from CNET for a bit, it's really out of place.

Filed Under: eric schmidt, privacy

Google's Moral Obligation To Newspapers: Help Both Sides Be Better Off

from the it's-called-capitalism dept

Almost exactly a year ago, we wrote about a reporter insisting that Google had some sort of moral obligation to help prop up journalism. As we noted at the time, this seemed ridiculous. Journalism's problem wasn't Google, but an unwillingness to adapt in a changing marketplace. In fact, it seemed as though Google should be looked on as a friend. It helped drive traffic to newspaper websites while also providing a very efficient ad platform for monetizing. Yet, the reporter seemed to think that because Google was raking in billions and newspapers (while still incredibly profitable) were seeing their markets shrink, Google should simply hand over money out of a moral obligation to fund journalism.

So, at first I was surprised to see reports coming out that Google CEO Eric Schmidt had gone on record claiming that Google does, in fact, have a moral obligation to help journalism -- but as you read the details, you see that he means in exactly the way we were talking about. He means that the moral obligation isn't to give them money, but to give them the tools by which they can make more money. I still don't see that as a "moral obligation," but simply good business for everyone involved (including consumers of the news).

Filed Under: business models, eric schmidt, moral obligation, newspapers
Companies: google