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The Query Chilling Effect
January 30, 2006
The Old Grey Lady, admittedly, has seen better days and truer articles, but occasionally some interesting reporting can still occur, as if by accident. Today was one of those occurances, the paper of record suprisingly taking a closer look at the chilling effect the Big Brother Brigade may be having on queries sans any of the balancing opinion "it's really, actually good for us in the long run" cowardly CYA fluff they usually feel compelled to supply (ok, there are a couple paragraphs like that, but less than normal for de rigueur journalism):
Kathryn Hanson, a former telecommunications engineer who lives in Oakland, Calif., was looking at BBC News online last week when she came across an item about a British politician who had resigned over a reported affair with a "rent boy."It was the first time Ms. Hanson had seen the term, so, in search of a definition, she typed it into Google. As Ms. Hanson scrolled through the results, she saw that several of the sites were available only to people over 18. She suddenly had a frightening thought. Would Google have to inform the government that she was looking for a rent boy - a young male prostitute?
...and...
Ms. Hanson, who did the "rent boy" search, said that although she was aware that personal information was not being required in the Google case, she remained uneasy.She pointed to a continuing interest she has in the Palestinian elections. "If I followed my curiosity and did some Web research, going to Web sites of the parties involved, I would honestly wonder whether someone in my government would someday see my name on a list of people who went to 'terrorist' Web sites," she said.
I point out the above not only to thank the New York Times for reporting something I'm sure made the editors a bit squeamish, not having fallen back onto the safety net of talking points and all, but also to remind us all that as we move to Internet 2.0 a significant fight we must wage is the battle against totalitarian urges naturally inclined to wrestle away control of our information medium, reducing it to the propaganda channels our other media have largely become.
Note that both instances in which a chill was felt above were simply in the course of further educating oneself, the great promise of the internet and search, with "all of the world's information" available and all- this great leap forward in the ability of humans to access information, any and all information, is what most troubles the totalitarian mindset. Loss of control of information is the loss of control.
Let's not lose ownership of the world's information, because once it goes down the memory hole it is not likely to come back.
see all posts by John Lustina
posted by John Lustina at January 30, 2006 03:57 PM
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