<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252"> <title>Re: [ICTs-and-Society] Blogpost about Google’s “New“ Terms of Use and Privacy Policy: Old Exploitation and User Commodification in a New Ideological Skin</title> </head> <body> Thanks to everyone for these thoughtful comments. I particularly agree with much of what Kristina says – I have too often felt rather a lone voice arguing somewhat similarly! In case any on the list are participating in ICTD2012 in Atlanta on 12th-16th March, we are hosting a debate on social media and democracy – on the morning of 15th. It would be great to have you involved in some way. For those not able to participate in person, we hope to webcast this, and are encouraging live tweets – although we are not yet sure that the technology in the conference centre will let us do all we would like! Thanks again for the interesting ideas Best wishes Tim On 01/03/2012 10:50, "Christian Fuchs" <<a href="christian.fuchs@uti.at">christian.fuchs@uti.at</a>> wrote: <blockquote>Dear James, Thank you for the thoughtfull discussion about Google. I agree that the question is what the limit of the use of personal information for advertising should be. I think I have a somewhat different answer than you have. For me the question is what the role and effects of advertising culture are in society. I am not at all arguing for opt-out advertising, but rather for a worldwide legal provision that makes opt-in advertising mandatory and outlaws opt-out. I agree with Oscar Gandy that personalised ads are a form of panoptic sorting and of social discrimination. The problem is not data processing as such, the problem are the class relations into which Google services (and other corporate Internet services) are embedded. Google's unification of terms simplifies and joins up the economic surveillance of users, as you say. From Google's business interests, this is a logical step because it promises more profits. At the same time, Google wants to ideologically sell this step as bringing about more user privacy, control etc, which it does not. I do think that advertising culture, the existence of advertising, is problematic and that it is the outgrowth of the commodification and commercialization of the world. We were better off with a world without advertising. I think for Critical Internet Studies, we also need (among a lot of things) Critical Advertising and Consumer Culture Studies. In the case of advertising-based audience commodification (as with Google), advertising is not only a privacy-violation, but - and this is my crucial point - it is the exploitation of user labour. I have problems with self-regulatory data protection, where companies choose whatever they want to do with user data and one tells users: oh, here are some great ways of how you can reduce the amount of data we use about you (opt-outs, privacy settings where the standard option is always the high use of user data for advertising, privacy-enhancing technologies, etc). THe thing is that for consumer privacy protection, it should not be required for the user/consumer to take action for not having ones data processed for advertising purposes, companies should in the first place not use data for such purposes and should be obliged to in the first place use no advertising. If a user wants his/her data to be used for advertising, then s/he should have the possibility to enable it, but the standard should be "no advertising". These are questions of choice, power, action, negative and positive freedom. I would not argue for keeping the user data of different Google services separate and not joining them up for advertising. I think this is too short-sighted. It is like not working in one factory and being exploited there for 8 hours and monitored by workplace CCTV, but working in 4 different factories 2 hours a day, being monitored by workplace CCTV, but not allowing the factories to compare the recorded data. I am in favour of not letting them exchange the data, but much more I think that the problem is that the workers is forced/has to work in these factories in order to survive. So what I am questioning is factory life as exploited life as such and that we should limit the commodification of everything, which requires legally limiting targeted advertising possibilities. And the Internet is a factory of surplus-value generation, Google being one of the primary Internet factories, in which we all work and create economic value. And in this factory, advertising culture has become a productive space, depends on a high-level of total instantenous real-time economic surveilallance of online activities and the transformation of all (or a lot of) online time into labour time. But being productive in the corporate Internet factory means being exploited. There is a difference between work and labour, the latter is value-generating and exploited. We work on Wikipedia and Diaspora, we labour on Google and Facebook. What I am questioning is the existence of the Internet factory, the labour it requires and the total commodification of online activities. Advertising is at the heart of the problem. Best, Christian _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list <a href="Discussion@lists.icts-and-society.net">Discussion@lists.icts-and-society.net</a> <a href="http://lists.icts-and-society.net/listinfo.cgi/discussion-icts-and-society.net">http://lists.icts-and-society.net/listinfo.cgi/discussion-icts-and-society.net</a> </blockquote> <hr align="CENTER" size="3" width="95%"> Tim Unwin UNESCO Chair in ICT4D and Emeritus Professor of Geography Room 109, Bowyer Building, Royal Holloway, University of London Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK <a href="tim.unwin@rhul.ac.uk">tim.unwin@rhul.ac.uk</a> <<a href="http://tim.unwin@rhul.ac.uk">http://tim.unwin@rhul.ac.uk</a>> Also, CEO of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation <a href="t.unwin@cto.int">t.unwin@cto.int</a> <a href="http://www.cto.int">http://www.cto.int</a> And Chair of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission <a href="tim.unwin@cscuk.org.uk">tim.unwin@cscuk.org.uk</a> <a href="http://cscuk.dfid.gov.uk">http://cscuk.dfid.gov.uk</a> <img src="cid:3413565385_293283"> Tel UK: +44 (0)1784-443655 Fax: +44 (0)1784-276647 Skype: timothyunwin <a href="http://www.ict4d.org.uk">http://www.ict4d.org.uk</a> <a href="http://www.unwins.eu">http://www.unwins.eu</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/timunwin">http://twitter.com/timunwin</a> <a href="http://www.thefreeuniversity.eu">http://www.thefreeuniversity.eu</a> ü Save paper and ink! 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