25
2011
The Googlization of Everything
Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of The Googlization of Everything & Professor at the University of Virginia
Friday, February 25, 12:00 pm
John Chipman Gray Room, Second Floor of Pound Hall, Harvard Law School (Map) **note new location
RSVPs to ashar@cyber.law.harvard.edu
Google dominates the World Wide Web. There was never an election to
determine the Web's rulers. No state appointed Google its proxy, its
proconsul, or viceroy. Google just stepped into the void when no other
authority was willing or able to make the Web stable, usable, and
trustworthy. This was a quite necessary step at the time. The question
is whether Google's dominance is the best situation for the future of
our information ecosystem. In the early days it was easy
to assume that the Web, and the Internet of which the Web is a part, was
ungoverned and ungovernable. It was supposed to be a perfect
libertarian space, free and open to all voices, unconstrained by the
conventions and norms of the real world, and certainly beyond the scope
of traditional powers of the state. But we now know that the Internet is
not as wild and ungoverned as we might have naively assumed back at its
conception. Not only does law matter online, but the specifics of the
Internet's design or "architecture" influence how the Web works and how
people behave with it. Like Jessica Rabbit in the film Who Framed
Roger Rabbit, the Internet is not bad-it's just drawn that way.
Still, architecture and state-generated law govern imperfectly. In the
People's Republic of China, the state clearly runs the Web. In Russia,
no one does. States such as Germany, France, Italy, and Brazil have
found some ways to govern over and above Google's influence. But
overall, no single state, firm, or institution in the world has as much
power over Web-based activity as Google does. So Google,
which rules by the power of convenience, comfort, and trust, has assumed
control, much as Julius Caesar did in Rome in 48 B.C. Before Caesar,
there was chaos and civil war, presided over by weak, ineffective
leaders who failed to capture the support of the people or to make Rome
livable. Like Caesar, Google has found its mandate to rule through vast
popular support, even in the absence of a referendum. And like Caesar's,
Google's appeal is almost divine. Because we focus so much on the
miracles of Google, we are too often blind to the ways in which Google
exerts control over its domain.
About Siva
Siva Vaidhyanathan is a cultural historian and media scholar, and is
currently a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia.
From 1999 through the summer of 2007 he worked in the Department of
Culture and Communication at New York University. Vaidhyanathan is a
frequent contributor on media and cultural issues in various
periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Times
Magazine, The Nation, and Salon.com, and he maintains a blog,
www.googlizationofeverything.com. He is a frequent contributor to
National Public Radio and to MSNBC.COM and has appeared in a segment of
"The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. Vaidhyanathan is a fellow of the New
York Institute for the Humanities and the Institute for the Future of
the Book.
In March 2002, Library Journal cited Vaidhyanathan among its “Movers
& Shakers” in the library field. In the feature story,
Vaidhyanathan lauded librarians for being “on the front lines of
copyright battles” and for being “the custodians of our information and
cultural commons.” In November 2004 the Chronicle of Higher Education
called Vaidhyanathan “one of academe’s best-known scholars of
intellectual property and its role in contemporary culture.” He has
testified as an expert before the U.S. Copyright Office on the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act.
He is noted for opposing the Google Books scanning project on copyright
grounds. He has published the opinion, that the project poses a danger
for the doctrine of fair use, because the fair use claims are arguably
so excessive that it may cause judicial limitation of that right.
Vaidhyanathan was born in Buffalo, New York, and attended the
University of Texas at Austin, earning both a B.A. in History and a
Ph.D. in American Studies.
Links
Last updated March 02, 2011