About Scott Cleland
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You are hereIntellectual PropertyTakeaways from DOJ's Opposition to Google Book Settlement; Winning the Battle Losing the War?Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2010-02-05 15:24While Google may be slowly losing the legal battle over the amended Google Book Settlement Agreement, the protracted legal process and Google's political "slow rolling" of the broader process are enabling Google to win the much larger marketplace war for global dominance over digital content and distribution.
Takeaway #1: DOJ still strongly objects to the proposed amended settlement (ASA). In the DOJ's latest statement of interest to the court, the DOJ continues to strongly object that the ASA violates three bodies of law: class action, copyright and antitrust. Key opposition quotes: Google's "Immaculate Collaboration" with NSA? Part XIX of Privacy-Publicacy SeriesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2010-02-04 12:44Ellen Nakashima may have a career-making scoop with her front page Washington Post investigative reporting piece: "Google to enlist NSA to help ward off cyberattacks."
Ms. Nakeshima's revelation that Google sought out NSA's help shortly after it suffered massive cyber-attacks, apparently from China, opens a Pandorra's Box of privacy issues given that Google's aggressive "publicacy" (anti-privacy) business model, policies and practices have shown little respect for people's privacy in practice over the last decade. Google's Showdown with DOJ over Book SettlementSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2010-02-03 13:00Most have missed that there's a big antitrust showdown happening this week.
The Google-DOJ showdown in a nutshell:
This is a big deal.
FCC Reclassification is Eminent Domain, but with No Just Compensation or AuthoritySubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2010-02-01 09:56At core the FCC's contemplation of reclassifying, or effectively treating, unregulated broadband info services as regulated telecom services, would be tantamount to the FCC declaring "eminent domain" over private broadband providers, i.e. justifying a government takings of private property for public uses, but doing so "without just compensation" or any statutory authority.
A gaping missing element in all the FCC's discussions of all the new "public uses" it envisions for broadband in its pending National Broadband Plan and its proposed preemptive Open Internet regulations is any consideration at all of the potential hundreds of billions of dollars of un-budgeted liability to the U.S. Treasury that could result from the takings of private network property without just compensation -- at a time of skyrocketing trillion dollar Federal budget deficits and rapidly mounting public debt. GoogleMonitor.com Launches Today -- Will spotlight Google’s lack of transparency and accountabilitySubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2010-01-27 10:17
January 27, 2010 For Immediate Release
Contact: Scott Cleland 703-217-2407
GoogleMonitor.com Launches Today Will spotlight Google’s lack of transparency and accountability
Google-China: Implications for Cyber-security -- Part VI "Security is Google's Achilles Heel" SeriesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2010-01-13 06:00The theft of Google's source code is the under-appreciated and under-reported new development in Google's big announcement of Google's "new approach to China" and its apparent decision to withdraw its business from China if China continues to insist that Google censor search results for in-country Chinese.
Anti-competition FreePress mocks antitrust, feigning support of video competitionSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2010-01-04 18:16FreePress, which philosophically opposes competition policy, effectively is mocking antitrust law and authorities by cynically feigning to care about antitrust and competition in calling for an antitrust investigation of "TV Everywhere" efforts to enable authenticated paying video customers the additional convenience of accessing their paid-for content on any device at no extra cost.
In their own words, FreePress is anti-competition, anti-property, and anti-business. Google The Totalitarian?Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2009-11-20 12:36Connecting the dots of several recent important developments, Google increasingly is acting autocratically like it has unlimited power and is answerable to no one.
Consider these several Google public actions over just the last month or so: Search: Read Richard Epstein's Great Op-ed on Net NeutralitySubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2009-10-27 18:51I admire clarity of thought, and Richard Epstein's Op-ed in the Financial Times, "Net Neutrality at the Crossroads," represents some of the clearest thinking I have found on net neutrality. Please read it. Mr. Epstein does a great job of exposing the folly beneath the vacuous sloganeering of net neutrality proponents. Goobris Alert: "We want to be Santa Claus"Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2009-10-20 18:50I kid you not. Google's latest antitrust defense, from the mouth of Dana Wagner, Google's lead antitrust lawyer, is: "We want to be Santa Claus. We want to make lots of toys that people like playing with. But if you don't want to play with our toys, you've got us."
Let me attempt to unpack the irony of this new story/metaphor of which Google has taken ownership. Most companies when they tell their corporate "story" try to "put their best foot forward," but no one but Google would think to try and slip jolly megalomaniacal corpulence down the narrow chimney of public credibility. Only Google would have so little real-world self-awareness as to choose to wrap itself in the beloved mythical role of Santa Claus who has the unique power to decide who has been good or "evil" during the last year, and the unique power to reward those who have been "good" in Google's eyes with toys and punish those who have been "evil" with coal in their stocking. Only Google would think it was good PR to allude to Google's secret search algorithms and auction "quality scores" as a worldwide "naughty and nice" list. Pages |