The Google juggernaut’s revenue growth has slowed steadily in the last five years, causing the Wall Street Journal to caution investors about buying Google stock. While much of the slow-down in Google’s revenue may be attributed to the recession, the WSJ cautions that:
Microsoft is offering stiffer competition in search, which will only intensify once antitrust regulators approve its partnership with Yahoo! and the two companies actually implement their partnership (which could take another year);
YouTube’s promise as an ad platform remains uncertain;
Google lags behind Apple and Research in Motion in developing mobile phone operating systems, with Android still unproven;
It remains unclear how successful the company will be in expanding beyond its existing lead in small text ads into the potentially lucrative realm of banner ads.
Somehow I doubt Google’s fall to Earth will do much to allay the concerns of those who see Google as the kind of evil monopolist Microsoft was made out to be in the 90s.
As the Journal concludes, “It would be foolish to predict that Google won’t have another business success, of course… Google may itself discover the next Google-like business.” As long as someone’s out there working to turn today’s idle fantasies into tomorrow’s multi-billion dollar businesses, consumers win—whoever that bold innovator might be.
We argue for user empowerment over restrictive defaults (like “opt-in”) for data use and collection because, as the Supreme Court held in 2000: “Technology expands the capacity to choose; and it denies the potential of this revolution if we assume the Government is best positioned to make these choices for us.”
We promote tools that let users make their own decisions about privacy, not only because those decisions are fundamentally subjective, but because regulatory mandates could stifle the development of online content and commerce.
Since 1997, the Supreme Court has struck down multiple legislative attempts to censor online and offline content [especially the CDA] because there were “less restrictive alternatives” that would not so heavily burden free speech rights. In a 2000 cable-related decision, the Court held that “targeted blocking [by users] is less restrictive than banning, and the Government cannot ban speech if targeted blocking is a feasible and effective means of furthering its compelling interests.”
Courts have struck down other federal and state speech controls because parents had the tools to filter their kids’ access to information online, in video games, etc., as described in my PFF colleague Adam Thierer’s ongoing catalog of these tools…
Many who oppose industry self-regulation are not really “consumer advocates” because they don’t recognize that consumers have many, competing values. Those regulatory advocates are more interested in their preferred one-size-fits-all mandates than in empowering users to determine their own privacy preferences.
Like advocates of censorship, privacy zealots assert great dangers to which citizens are supposedly oblivious but which urgently require government intervention-dismissing arguments to the contrary as either uninformed or irresponsible.
The comments on the interview are equally worth reading. Jeff Chester, who has made a career out of attacking advertising, quickly posted a comment dismissing, but ignoring, my arguments about consumer welfare as corporate propaganda—just as he did with his comment on the post Adam and I wrote in June about congressional hearings on the issue featuring Chester (and Scott Cleland, the right-wing “Bizarro Chester“). I’ve had it with Chester’s ad hominem attacks on the motives of those who disagree with him, as I explained in my reply to Chester: Continue reading →
Back in June, NetChoice introduced the iAWFUL (the Internet Advocates’ Watchlist for Ugly Laws) list as part of a broader effort to push back against America’s worst Internet legislation. Two months have passed, and while many of the bills in the top 10 have changed, they remain every bit as AWFUL.
Earlier today NetChoice unveiled the first major update of iAWFUL, which lists the 10 worst Internet bills/laws in America. The updated list includes five new items, with new laws in the top 2 slots.
It’s worth mentioning a few that fell off the list, in large part thanks to the pressure that Internet advocates exerted through iAWFUL:
#2 on the June iAWFUL list was a California bill that would have forced unworkable technical restrictions on the posting of photos to social networking pages. The bill’s sponsor responded by working with Internet advocates to fix problems with the measure.
#3 on the June iAWFUL list was a bill in Connecticut that would have required sales tax collection by out-of-state businesses that pay commissions to in-state affiliates. The Governor heard our concerns about the impact on in-state publishers and school charities, and has thus far kept this measure off the table in budget negotiations.
#5 on the June iAWFUL list was a Connecticut bill to let police conduct searches of homes where goods were being stored by online dealers – without having to obtain a search warrant. Thanks to iAWFUL publicity, this bill stalled in the House.
This is what iAWFUL is all about: creating positive change through informed advocacy.
Now for the bad news. For every measure that fell off the iAWFUL list, we found a truly AWFUL replacement. Continue reading →
In my last post, I touted an often-ignored benefit of targeted ads: that they directly enhance the browsing experience, compared to seeing dumb ads. This post argues that no one has a “right to her data” that ad-targeting takes away.
“Privacy” is a word of many meanings. The best explanation of the myriad ways the word has been used I’ve seen came from TLF’s own Jim Harper five years ago. People have a right to privacy in some senses, but not in others. They have a justice-based right (a political moral right) to freedom from government intrusion – the broad sense of privacy espoused in cases like Lawrence v. Texas. And they have a justice-based right to not have to give up information about themselves to the government, the sort of right violated by NSA wiretapping and that should be protected by the Fourth Amendment – the kind of right espoused in cases like Katz v. United States.
We do not have any justice-based right, however, to control what is done with those things we voluntarily give away to private individuals. If I sell you or give you my laptop, without any restrictions on your use, I have no rights-based complaint if you use it to do something I find objectionable, such as reading Perez Hilton. Nor do I have a rights-based complaint if you take the information I left on it and use it for your purposes. Even if that information is about me. Continue reading →
We here at TLF have long been pointing out the benefits of targeted ads. But recently, we have focused on what I call the “supply-side” benefits – that targeted ads make free content possible by increasing the price advertisers are willing to pay for each pageview and therefore the amount of revenue content providers collect. That is a crucial point, and one that has yet to be absorbed by Congress, the FTC, and even other experts in Internet policy.
But we haven’t talked a lot about what I call the “demand-side” benefits – that targeted advertising is better for the viewer, directly, than non-targeted advertising. We have been too quick, I think, to legitimize the other side’s concerns, which they label under the heading “privacy,” by discussing the situation as one of trade-offs and TINSTAFL.
Our arguments have sounded like those supporting free trade agreements because of the trade barriers the other countries are lifting, implying that we should not remove our own trade barriers unless other countries agree to remove theirs. This is the wrong argument to make, for the simple reason that trade barriers don’t just hurt the economies of other countries; they damage our own. As my economics professor, Jeff Miron, put it, when everyone is shooting themselves in the foot, you don’t wait until you can get everyone else to agree to stop with you; you just let go of the gun. Continue reading →
by Adam Thierer & Berin Szoka — (Ver. 1.0 — Summer 2009)
We are attempting to articulate the core principles of cyber-libertarianism to provide the public and policymakers with a better understanding of this alternative vision for ordering the affairs of cyberspace. We invite comments and suggestions regarding how we should refine and build-out this outline. We hope this outline serves as the foundation of a book we eventually want to pen defending what we regard as “Real Internet Freedom.” [Note: Here’s a printer-friendly version, which we also have embedded down below as a Scribd document.]
I. What is Cyber-Libertarianism?
Cyber-libertarianism refers to the belief that individuals—acting in whatever capacity they choose (as citizens, consumers, companies, or collectives)—should be at liberty to pursue their own tastes and interests online.
Generally speaking, the cyber-libertarian’s motto is “Live & Let Live” and “Hands Off the Internet!” The cyber-libertarian aims to minimize the scope of state coercion in solving social and economic problems and looks instead to voluntary solutions and mutual consent-based arrangements.
Cyber-libertarians believe true “Internet freedom” is freedom from state action; not freedom for the State to reorder our affairs to supposedly make certain people or groups better off or to improve some amorphous “public interest”—an all-to convenient facade behind which unaccountable elites can impose their will on the rest of us.
What Unites Advocates of Speech Controls & Privacy Regulation? [pdf]
by Adam Thierer & Berin Szoka
The Progress & Freedom Foundation, Progress on Point No. 16.19
Anyone who has spent time following debates about speech and privacy regulation comes to recognize the striking parallels between these two policy arenas. In this paper we will highlight the common rhetoric, proposals, and tactics that unite these regulatory movements. Moreover, we will argue that, at root, what often animates calls for regulation of both speech and privacy are two remarkably elitist beliefs:
People are too ignorant (or simply too busy) to be trusted to make wise decisions for themselves (or their children); and/or,
All or most people share essentially the same values or concerns and, therefore, “community standards” should trump household (or individual) standards.
While our use of the term “elitism” may unduly offend some understandably sensitive to populist demagoguery, our aim here is not to launch a broadside against elitism as Time magazine culture critic William H. Henry once defined it: “The willingness to assert unyieldingly that one idea, contribution or attainment is better than another.”[1] Rather, our aim here is to critique that elitism which rises to the level of political condescension and legal sanction. We attack not so much the beliefs of some leaders, activists, or intellectuals that they have a better idea of what it in the public’s best interest than the public itself does, but rather the imposition of those beliefs through coercive, top-down mandates.
That sort of elitism—elitism enforced by law—is often the objective of speech and privacy regulatory advocates. Our goal is to identify the common themes that unite these regulatory movements, explain why such political elitism is unwarranted, and make it clear how it threatens individual liberty as well as the future of free and open Internet. As an alternative to this elitist vision, we advocate an empowerment agenda: fostering an environment in which users have the tools and information they need to make decisions for themselves and their families. Continue reading →
Microsoft and Yahoo’s proposed deal faces a tough antitrust gauntlet. In today’s The Seattle Times, Jonathan Hillel and I have an op-ed in which we argue that trustbusters should let the deal go through:
MICROSOFT and Yahoo want to join forces in Internet search to better compete against Google. But first, they need the blessing of government antitrust enforcers. Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., already has threatened “careful scrutiny” of the deal. But trustbusters should not go fishing for problems in the Internet search market. In the relentlessly fast-moving digital economy, government intervention contorts the market and ultimately harms consumers.
Under their proposed decade-long pact, Yahoo searches will be powered by Microsoft’s Bing search engine, which launched this June. The two search firms will maintain separate Web sites, but Microsoft will administer the technical side of both. Microsoft will also gain access to Yahoo’s vast volume of searches and query data. In exchange, Yahoo will receive 88 percent of ad revenues from searches performed on its own site.
We’ve written a lot lately about Microsoft’s efforts to reinvent itself, first rebranding its Live search engine as the Bing, and then partnering with Yahoo! to make Bing the search engine on Yahoo!’s still-impressive empire of content and services. But if Microsoft is going to beat Google in Search 3.0 and master shifts in the driving paradigms of the Internet from search and browsers to ubiquitous integration of social networking and other paradigms as yet unforeseen, Microsoft will need more than just brilliant engineering: They’ll need clever marketing.
So it seems that the software titan is turning to user-generated advertising, such as this gem:
WARNING: Battlestar Galactica spoiler: Google may well be in danger of losing its monopoly on cool to Microsoft if Bingcan get at least four of the Final Five Cylons to volunteer as back-up singers in a promo video contest.
Google clearly considers Microsoft a threat, having recently launched an ad campaign of its own for its Apps services, which compete directly with Microsoft Office.
Maybe Obama should invite Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer over to the White House for a beer to settle the two companies’ differences!
While he’s at it, Obama might want to invite Apple CEO Steve Jobs, too, since the common cause Apple and Google once made against Microsoft now seems to be giving way to increased rivalry between the two titans of Internet cool. Or how about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, given Facebook’s growing challenge to Google? Yahoo!’s Carol Bartz seems to get along much better with everyone than the boys in the group, so she’d probably help Obama keep things under control.
The Internet industry’s war-of-all-against-all is reminiscent of Tom Lehrer‘s classic 1960s satire “National Brotherhood Week”:
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology. Learn more about TLF →
The Google juggernaut’s revenue growth has slowed steadily in the last five years, causing the Wall Street Journal to caution investors about buying Google stock. While much of the slow-down in Google’s revenue may be attributed to the recession, the WSJ cautions that:
Back in June, 
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.