Google\u2019s Sergey Brin: China, SOPA, Facebook Threaten the \u2018Open Web\u2019<\/p>\n
Threats range from governments trying to control citizens to the rise of Facebook and Apple-style \u2018walled gardens\u2019.The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Guardian, Sergey Brin warned there were \u201cvery powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world\u201d. \u201cI am more worried than I have been in the past,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s scary.\u201d<\/p>\n
The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, Sergey Brin claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry\u2019s attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of \u201crestrictive\u201d walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old billionaire, whose family fled antisemitism in the Soviet Union, was widely regarded as having been the driving force behind Google\u2019s partial pullout from China in 2010 over concerns about censorship and cyber-attacks. He said five years ago he did not believe China or any country could effectively restrict the internet for long, but now says he has been proven wrong. \u201cI thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sergey Brin said he was most concerned by the efforts of countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to censor and restrict use of the internet, but warned that the rise of Facebook and Apple, which have their own proprietary platforms and control access to their users, risked stifling innovation and balkanising the web.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot to be lost,\u201d he said. \u201cFor example, all the information in apps \u2013 that data is not crawlable by web crawlers. You can\u2019t search it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Google\u2019s upstart rival has seen explosive growth: it has signed up half of Americans with computer access and more than 800 million members worldwide.<\/p>\n
Brin said he and co-founder Larry Page would not have been able to create Google if the internet was dominated by Facebook. \u201cYou have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive,\u201d he said. \u201cThe kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He criticised Facebook for not making it easy for users to switch their data to other services. \u201cFacebook has been sucking down Gmail contacts for many years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brin\u2019s comments come on the first day of a week-long Guardian investigation of the intensifying battle for control of the internet being fought across the globe between governments, companies, military strategists, activists and hackers.<\/p>\n
From the attempts made by Hollywood to push through legislation allowing pirate websites to be shut down, to the British government\u2019s plans to monitor social media and web use, the ethos of openness championed by the pioneers of the internet and worldwide web is being challenged on a number of fronts.<\/p>\n
In China, which now has more internet users than any other country, the government recently introduced new \u201creal identity\u201d rules in a bid to tame the boisterous microblogging scene. In Russia, there are powerful calls to rein in a blogosphere blamed for fomenting a wave of anti-Vladimir Putin protests. It has been reported that Iran is planning to introduce a sealed \u201cnational internet\u201d from this summer.<\/p>\n
Ricken Patel, co-founder of Avaaz, the 14 million-strong online activist network which has been providing communication equipment and training to Syrian activists, echoed Brin\u2019s warning: \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a massive attack on the freedom of the web. Governments are realising the power of this medium to organise people and they are trying to clamp down across the world, not just in places like China and North Korea; we\u2019re seeing bills in the United States, in Italy, all across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Writing in the Guardian on Monday, outspoken Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei says the Chinese government\u2019s attempts to control the internet will ultimately be doomed to failure. \u201cIn the long run,\u201d he says, \u201cthey must understand it\u2019s not possible for them to control the internet unless they shut it off \u2013 and they can\u2019t live with the consequences of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amid mounting concern over the militarisation of the internet and claims \u2013 denied by Beijing \u2013 that China has mounted numerous cyber-attacks on US military and corporate targets, he said it would be hugely difficult for any government to defend its online \u201cterritory\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you compare the internet to the physical world, there really aren\u2019t any walls between countries,\u201d he said. \u201cIf Canada wanted to send tanks into the US there is nothing stopping them and it\u2019s the same on the internet. It\u2019s hopeless to try to control the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n
He reserved his harshest words for the entertainment industry, which he said was \u201cshooting itself in the foot, or maybe worse than in the foot\u201d by lobbying for legislation to block sites offering pirate material.<\/p>\n
He said the Sopa and Pipa bills championed by the film and music industries would have led to the US using the same technology and approach it criticised China and Iran for using. The entertainment industry failed to appreciate people would continue to download pirated content as long as it was easier to acquire and use than legitimately obtained material, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t tried it for many years but when you go on a pirate website, you choose what you like; it downloads to the device of your choice and it will just work \u2013 and then when you have to jump through all these hoops [to buy legitimate content], the walls created are disincentives for people to buy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brin acknowledged that some people were anxious about the amount of their data that was now in the reach of US authorities because it sits on Google\u2019s servers. He said the company was periodically forced to hand over data and sometimes prevented by legal restrictions from even notifying users that it had done so.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe push back a lot; we are able to turn down a lot of these requests. We do everything possible to protect the data. If we could wave a magic wand and not be subject to US law, that would be great. If we could be in some magical jurisdiction that everyone in the world trusted, that would be great \u2026 We\u2019re doing it as well as can be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Until Next Time, <\/p>\n
~Joseph Myoya<\/p>\n
Will web freedom restrictions being a catastrophe, leave us your comment and Questions Below, and also SHARE & LIKE this to alert you friend and Neighbors about what coming! Much Love Thanks <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Google\u2019s Sergey Brin: China, SOPA, Facebook Threaten the \u2018Open Web\u2019 Threats range from governments trying to control citizens to the rise of Facebook and Apple-style \u2018walled gardens\u2019.The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":479,"featured_media":63,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,2,6,7,8,9,3],"tags":[15,35,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,86,83,84,53,85],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-affilliate-marketing-blue-print","category-computer-technology","category-empower-network","category-health","category-lifestyle-entertainment","category-networking-tools-belt","category-new-year-resolution","category-news-politics","tag-affialate-marketing-profits","tag-affiliate-marketer","tag-affiliate-marketing","tag-affiliate-marketing-101","tag-affiliate-programs","tag-attitude","tag-barack-hussein-obama","tag-barack-obama","tag-bats","tag-beyonce","tag-business","tag-google","tag-googles-sergey-brin","tag-internet","tag-sergey-brin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/mkwadu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/mkwadu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/mkwadu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/mkwadu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/mkwadu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/mkwadu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/mkwadu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/mkwadu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/mkwadu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/mkwadu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/mkwadu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}