Shoot the Searchers!

There are numerous developments in the Internet world that should be of concern to all of us. One thing, of course, is the issue of 'net neutrality' which primarily revolves around data carriers attempts to be able to control who uses their services. Basically the deal is that companies like Verizon, Bell, etc. want to be able to sell exclusivity or priority on their available data streams to the highest bidder. Their claims that they need this ability to afford to develop more data carrying capability are completely fallacious, but they have found a way to make it sound reasonable and are willing to bribe as many politicians as necessary to make this happen. The possible profits for them are beyond calculation as they would, of course, quit wasting money on developing more capability and simply sell current capacity at the highest possible price. Can you imagine what, for example, Google might pay to have Yahoo, Ask.com, Amazon.com, etc. denied access or limited to slow dial up lines?

The article “Italy opens probe into Google over bullying video” ( look it up with a Google News Search) points to another insidious attack on the Internet as we know it. In this case the Italian government is trying to hold Google responsible for letting people see a video of four teenagers beating a disabled teen in a classroom in Turin. What the Italian government would have us believe is that Google committed some kind of crime by letting the public find this video on the Internet.

"I've said repeatedly that there can't be double standards, one for the press and television and another for the Internet," Fioroni told ANSA news agency.

The Internet search engine shared the same duty as other forms of media in distributing "responsible" content, he said.

It sounds quite reasonable but think a minute. Is the researcher who finds pictures of naked people in the middle of the New York Sunday Times guilty of the same breach of standards as the editors who put pictures of naked people in the middle of the New York Times? Well according to the Italian government finding illicit published material is the same crime as publishing illicit material. Hmmm!I suppose that the same argument could be made that if someone put the names of all the undercover CIA agents around the world in a flyer and passed it out by putting it under the windshield wipers of all the cars parked in New York City, it would be a reasonable and legal response to try all the people who read the flyer for treason and jail them for life. Only those that destroyed the document and erased all memory of it could be considered blameless.

These actions, in this case by the Italian government but actually distressingly common throughout the world, are taken because governments prefer secrecy. The last thing anyone in power actually wants is an informed public. The Internet scares the 'bejesus' out of the powerful.

Without certain tools the Internet is such a mass of diffuse data that it would be nearly useless, but the search engines, data miners, aggregators, etc. turn it into a tool that everyday people can use. Therefore, quite sensibly from their point of view, governments and powerful corporations have chosen to aim their attack at those tools. If they can manage to make the researchers responsible for what is found they will have effectively crippled the information dissemination potential of the Internet and helped restore the ignorance of the public.

Making these ridiculous attacks as many of the powerful have done, and giving in to them as Google, MSN and others have continually done is not a minor issue. Being a 'little bit' censored is a lot like being a 'little bit' pregnant. There really is no such thing!