About Scott Cleland
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You are hereFreedom of SpeechThe Politics of Regulating the InternetSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2011-11-07 17:47As the Senate prepares to vote on the fate of the FCC's net neutrality regulations this week, it's instructive to look more closely at the politics of regulating the Internet. Read my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here. Why Anti-Piracy Legislation Will Become LawSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2011-11-02 18:56Pending anti-piracy legislation (Senate: PROTECT IP, House: SOPA) is very likely to become law in 2012. See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here to learn why, and why it is important. Announcing 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. The Goolag InfopelagoSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2011-02-09 12:43
Google's oft-stated goal to "change the world" and its famed mission to centralize all of the world's information to make it universally accessible, self-appoints Google to be the world's omni-information gatekeeper, distributor, librarian, publisher, editor, programmer, and broadcaster. In building its Googleopoly, Google represented itself to everyone as unbiased and neutral in order to gain everyone's trust. A core concern with Google's centralized information power and opaque black box system is that Google has the unaccountable power and constant opportunity to decide what information people around the world access, and also to decide what information Google does not want them to find. Today in Politico's top story "Tech War: Google vs Microsoft" by Elizabeth Wasserman, I was quoted saying: "It's scary that the monopoly information access point of the world is going after voices of dissent."
Google Censoring its Critics: IBD article "When Analysts Look Over Their Shoulders"Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2010-12-24 11:41For an "unusual behind-the-scenes" look at how Google, by far the world's-leading source of information, proactively seeks to censor information critical of Google from becoming more "accessible and useful" to the world, please read this Investor's Business Daily,"Managing for Success" feature article by Brian Deagon, entitled: "When Analysts Look Over Their Shoulders." If this is Google's "typical" treatment of its critics, what else is Google doing "behind-the-scenes" to people with information that Google disagrees with or that Google does not want to be "accessible and useful" to the world?"
Wikileaks & Responsible Open Internet BoundariesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2010-12-07 11:27Julian Assange's reprehensible Wikileaks data breaches of secret, private and proprietary information to the web, endangering lives, diplomacy and peace, has thrust to the forefront of public debate: what are the responsible boundaries of an "Open Internet?"
It is instructive that the term "open Internet" is found nowhere in law.
Google Schmidt: "China can be best understood as a large, well-run business"Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2010-10-06 12:09In his latest display of no-self-awareness, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt, in an interview with the Atlantic, said:
Is Google's CEO the only sentient being on the planet that isn't aware that China is organized around the principles of China's National Communist Party? "If China is best understood as a large, well-run business," why does Communist China censor and imprison their Chinese "customers" if they object too much to China's products and services?
Google: Transparency for thee but not for meSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2010-09-21 10:53In another Google fit of no-self-awareness, Google has launched a new web tool that they call the "transparency report" in order to promote transparency as "a deterrent to censorship," per a Google spokeswoman in the NYT's Bits Blog. While I applaud the tool and Google's effort to promote transparency as a deterrent to censorship, the effort appears disingenuous because of Google's double standard that others must submit to transparency, but not Google. Google's tool will have "a map that shows every time a government has asked Google to take down or hand over information, and what percentage of the time Google has complied," per the NYT's Bits Blog."
If transparency is good: Google and the Internet Bed it Made -- Contortions of Justifying a Google Exemption From PrinciplesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2010-07-15 10:54Google strongly legitimized the problem of "search neutrality" in arguing in detail in an FT op-ed today why Google's search should not be neutral. Skype's Net Neutrality Infidelity ScandalSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2010-07-14 13:07Skype, one of the high priests of the net neutrality movement, that preaches for Title II monopoly regulation of all the broadband providers it already rides upon for free, has been caught in the act of being blatantly unfaithful to its widely-professed net neutrality principles, by blocking interconnectivity to Fring!
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