EPIGONIC

Ruh Roh, Tylenol Scare

Will be very interesting to see if this little nugget breaks out and gets attention.

I was at a company that was accused of privacy violations. Real was hammered because our RealJukebox 2.0 player had a GUID -- globally unique identifier, or GUID -- which theoretically could have been used to track individual listening habits. We hadn't informed our customers of this feature, and thus could not have gotten informed consent from them to enable it. And though the GUID was never used to track individual listening habits, and the RealJukebox and RealPlayer were quickly patched to remove the GUIDs altogether and any possibility of this occuring, the fact that the feature was ever included without disclosure to -- and informed consent from -- our customers understandably troubled many, many people.

We went through a searing, painful, good faith soul-searching after that. We apologized to our customers. We were deeply embarrassed that this mistake could have ever happened. We put processes in place thereafter to scrutinize every service and product we subsequently built to ensure there were no real or apparent privacy violations. But our efforts at being purer-than-pure didn't matter by that point; the damage with many consumers and customers had been done during a two-week firestorm. Opinions had already been set in stone, and it would be difficult if not impossible to change them. Forever.

And here lies Google's potential hazard with web accelerator -- they run the risk of creating an appearance of violating users' privacy, regardless of how pure they may think they are being with regard to the actual facts. They appear to disclose what they're collecting with GWA. But the fact that they're collecting this data at all will prove troubling to many folks. Even if they are legally, technically within the bounds of accepted online privacy behaviors, many may wonder why they really need to collect data from third party sites their customers visit and cache that data. And once that questioning starts, it is hard to put an end to it.

Reason to Worry?

Battelle had a small little item the other day that caught my attention: Google, breaking what seems to be a pretty cardinal rule, intruding on the pristine white space of the home page, to promote their search toolbar.

Since that item the other day, I have seen the promotion not only on the Google home page, but at the bottom of various search results pages. If they're intruding on the pristine white space, and breaking cardinal rules, I can think of just three explanations:

1. That the distribution costs have gotten too high at the margins to make it economical to rely mainly on third parties for distribution.

2. That they feel like there are no longer any viable, high volume third party software makers with whom they can ally themselves, and are taking matters into their own hands to guarantee distribution. Maybe related to this.

3. They're plotting trendlines out two to three quarters, see trouble, and are getting a little panicked.

Probably #1, maybe #2, and only time will tell if number 3 is a factor.

Truly a Pathetic Excuse

One of the more interesting and memorable (and, in retrospect, utterly depressing) moments at the Web2 conference last week occurred when John Battelle asked Terry Semel about Yahoo in China, and the recent case in which Yahoo turned over information to Chinese authorities about a Chinese journalist, Shi Tao, that led to his imprisonment for 10 years.

I listened carefully, and I am pretty sure that Semel's justification for this was: "We have to adhere to the laws of the countries in which we do business." That has been their consistent line of defense since early September.

It all seemed so reasonable, so sensible, so justifiable when he said it, even if there was a slight smell of bullshit about the claim. But as I've thought about it more, I am shocked and ashamed I didn't stand up and scream, and that others didn't either. This justification and kind of excuse is as outrageously offensive as the actual act.

A few years ago, a book came out about IBM's collaboration with the Nazis in the late 1930s; specifically, that IBM provided the punch card technology that enable the Nazi government to identify and catalog Jews living in Germany. I have still not read the book, but there is a good summary from a Business Week article from the time here.

I found, and still find, that discovery stunning, and the collaboration by IBM with the Nazis reprehensible and beyond justification. Of course, it may be unfair to equate that act with what Yahoo, Cisco and others are doing now; no one is claiming Chinese authorities are using US technology to engage in genocide. (Remember, though, that preceding regimes had no problem killing tens of millions of Chinese citizens).

But isn't it bad enough that Yahoo, Cisco and others are actively collaborating with and supporting the current Chinese government in their systematic, clear, unambiguous repression of basic human rights? Isn't that bad enough? Or, is imprisonment and repression not enough, and do they only cross the line when millions are killed as a result of their actions?

The argument (Semel made this, too) is that we may not like their laws, we may not like their human rights record, but it is better to engage than walk away. I spent two years traipsing through China while working for Real, and I actually buy the constructive engagement argument in general terms.

But I think you have to draw the line when you at active support for and cooperation with policies and programs that clearly violate human rights. Turning over Shi Tao's name was such a clear violation of human rights. Period. So is the provisioning of routers by Cisco to enable China and Myanmar to filter out speech those regimes don't like or approve.

I side with those beginning to boycott Yahoo! I'll stay away from their products from now on, including the beloved flickr and my yahoo and yahoo mail. And I hope the smart, sensitive and thoughtful folks who work at Yahoo that I've met will press on their bosses to do better. And maybe the famous bloggers will take a break from their pet causes and more parochial issues to devote  some time to this.