About Scott Cleland
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You are hereIntellectual PropertyAnnouncing My New Book: Search & Destroy Why You Can't Trust Google Inc.Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-05-10 11:57I've long thought there was a big untold story about Google, essentially a book all about Google, but told from a user's perspective, rather than the well-worn path of Google books told largely from Google's own paternal perspective.
Given that Google is the most ubiquitous, powerful and disruptive company in the world, it seemed logical to me that users, and people affected by Google, had a lot of important and fundamental questions about Google that no book had ever tried to answer in a straightforward and well-defended manner. Google vs Apple: How Business Models Drive Disrespect vs Respect for PrivacySubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2011-05-06 15:13How business models are aligned or not with users' privacy interests, will be spotlighted at the Senate Judiciary hearing Tuesday on "Protecting Mobile Privacy" featuring Google and Apple officials as witnesses.
While the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy will hear from both Google and Apple witnesses on how their companies handle users' WiFi location data, their testimony will provide stark contrast in the companies' privacy conflicts of interests. Google vs Apple concerning alignment with users' interests: First, 97% of Google's ~$30b in annual revenues comes from advertisers, whereas ~99% of Apple's ~$87b in annual revenue comes directly from customers who buy and use Apple's products and services.
Google's Anti-Management Bias ProblemSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2011-05-04 11:16In a remarkable admission for a senior public company executive, Google Chairman and longtime former CEO Eric Schmidt told Gigaom: "At Google, we give the impression of not managing the company, because we don't really. It sort of has its own borg-like quality if you will. It sort of just moves forward." If the executives ultimately responsible for "managing the company" to ensure it proactively respects users' privacy, vigilantly guards against security and data breaches or property infringement, is not really "managing the company," it now makes sense why Google has so many privacy scandals, and security and property infringement problems. Generally protecting privacy, security and property rights are not engineering goals unless company management and managers have internal control and management focus, systems, processes, and procedures to ensure they are a priority to engineering teams. Google's lack of interest in management execution is evident in Google's:
Google's "Copyright School" Tacitly Admits Liability in Viacom vs YouTube CaseSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2011-04-14 12:35Ironically Google's new "Copyright School" to better educate YouTube users of copyright law and responsibilities, slides Google down the slippery slope of tacitly admitting liability for copyright infringement in Viacom's billion dollar infringement suit against Google-YouTube. (See Politico's story.) There are two big takeaways from Google's new "Copyright School." First, Google continues to basically blame users for copyright infringement while absolving itself of mass facilitation of copyright infringement. The big open question here is does Google have a "copyright school" for its YouTube engineers/employees and have any of them attended it?
Second, why didn't Google do this shortly after it bought YouTube over three years ago? Key Questions for Google's New CEO Larry PageSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2011-04-01 18:51When the world's most powerful company gets a new CEO for the first time in a decade, everyone naturally has a lot of questions.
Priorities: Is Google Android a Counterfeit Operating System?Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2011-03-18 14:35Three completely different entities, coming from three very different perspectives/motivations, are all making the same charge against Google: that Google forged their work and stole/misused their property in creating its world-leading Android mobile operating system.
Google's 'Algorithmic Hand' Proves an Unstable Market MechanismSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2011-03-03 22:38Google's biggest-ever reordering of its search results this past week to reward what Google believes is high quality content and punish low quality content prompted an public epiphany this week that Google has the market power to effectively pick winners and losers in the online content market.
There are two big takeaways from this public epiphany that "Google is the de facto web content market:"
Preview Google's Apology for Collecting Kids SS#sSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2011-02-23 11:32See a preview below of Google's likely official public apology for collecting kids' partial Social Security #s and other private information -- without the permission of their parents. "We are deeply sorry, very very sorry, and even oh-so-sorry for collecting partial social security numbers, date and place of birth on kindergartners and grade schoolers participating in the Doodle-4-Google contest. Mobile Content: Google's Commons vs. Apple's MarketSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2011-02-17 11:08Mobile content producers do not have a truly competitive choice between Google's 10% fee One Pass service and Apple's 30% fee subscription service, as much as they have a value system choice between Google's Internet commons model and Apple's property-rights-driven market.
As much as Google tries to fool Little Red Riding Hood content owners that their Grandma always had such big eyes and big teeth, most mobile content providers will spot the Google commons wolf in disguise.
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