NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Cato / Public Citizen: Tim Wu is wrong claiming searchengines aren't protected by the First Amendment (Lauren Weinstein)
My point is that it does not matter to the consumer if it is first amendment speech as long as the speaker is held accountable for their speech. My second point is that the issues is very serious if Internet Service Providers attempt to have the same rights as individuals, when they obviously do not share anything related to the general user's experience. You are correct that the law is still in flux with the users not in the game at all. Some courts are starting to see these cases and must decide who owns the input that may be converted by service providers into more profitable unrelated services. e.g. pictures loaded on the profiles of Facebook users is converted into a facial recognition applications. Where the images owned by the users or the company that provided the platform that allowed the images to be shared. The company's original terms of service claimed no such right, but it was later changed to appropriate the images and other content. User reaction posed a serious problem that an online process to allow consumer input on the drafting of the terms of service, which I would add was controlled by the company resulted in a new terms of service agreement. The power of the service provider is in the network and applications that make it possible for consumers to use computing technology in innovative ways. The questions is this legal. If we move the discussion to physical space and say how about the activity of people who enter a store, restaurant or hotel would the same power to collect retain and use consumer activity apply. It is just as intimate and likely very sensitive information. Is the consumer expectation the same in physical and virtual space? The reasonable person test is the key to what the answer will be in the long term. consumers are taking on the complete risk of downloading and using all software while the developer or those who configure the individual coding contributions of many programs remains free of the consequences of errors. There is a point reach in each adoption of new technology where there is no expectation that the inventor should provide a societal requirement to protect the users: automobiles, telephones, airplanes, electrical appliances until they reach a certain saturation point where their malfunction had greater consequences for society. With computing code and computerized systems could they be designed and built better -- yes. Will computing system be built better than they are is the question. The beginning of the industry there were no rules except meeting the new release deadline--the expectation was that any problems would be fixe with patches--thus "Patch Tuesday" was born. Every start-up that wanted to make it followed the same process--knowing full well that they had flaws in their software--holes that if exploited or the wrong set of circumstances occurred there would be failures. Thus the deployment of shrink wrap licenses. We know that there are better ways to build complex computing systems- e.g. larger commercial aircraft are complex computing systems. The only way these systems will be better are regulations that require that they are better. Microsoft has worked very hard to improve its software at a great cost and many of the issues around early product release practices were corrected. Later companies like Google have had a few known problems, but a lack of obligation to disclose issues means there may be more. The Internet is the ultimate mixing bowl for new software and applications and there consequences for computing devices is mixed. In secure environments there is zero tolerance for applications (apps) and small computing devices (smartphones or thumb drives) because they introduce risks. We should be very serious about how software, firmware and hardware is constructed and hold companies accountable for the functioning of their products. Further the content of users should have the same protections as personal property. The allusion of privacy and ownership should not be fostered by service providers if they have no intention of honoring it because users would not provide information they do not intend to relinquish. But there in rests the problem--is users did not believe they were in a private and controlled space for their use they would not act in certain ways which is of value to micro-targeting for marketing purposes. The value of gathering millions of users and their personal lives is not the system that attracts them, but the computing systems ability to collect user data without their knowledge that makes the online environment--the ultimate human sticky paper. There are a lot of issues that the court or policy makers must decide that will make the resolution of these issues very interesting. On Jun 23, 2012, at 10:59 PM, dpreed@reed.com wrote:
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