Re: [projectvrm] paying vs being the product (Google)

[Doc Searls < >]

> On Jul 15, 2015, at 12:08 AM, Id Coach 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> 
> "[Google] If you're not paying for the product, you are the product"
> 
> https://plus.google.com/+BrianWhite1/posts/T56nDLcMHVk
> 
>    "I have to admit, this is a catchy line.  It appeals to the
>     inner cynic in us all and makes a certain amount of sense in a
>     core, "what can you do for me," type of thinking.  But it's
>     hog-wash.”

It’s not. We are cynics for good reason.

But, to be fair, it also oversimplifies. For example you’re not the product 
for free software, which costs nothing. (Yes, I know the “free” means 
free-as-in-beer. It’s just a useful illustration here.)

> Says a company whose customers are the advertisers...

Or so says Brian White, who works for the company. It’s a small distinction, 
but one worth noting. 

FWIW, I know lots of people who work for Google too. (Some are on this list.) 
For the most part, they say the same kind of stuff that Brian says in that 
post. 

It’s also worth nothing that advertising is Google’s main business, but not 
its only one.

Recently we (searls.com) considered becoming a customer of Google’s paid 
email service. I opted instead for Rackspace’s; but I had a chance to dig 
into a Google direct paid service business, and it wasn’t bad. There are 
actually people you can talk to there, and get service from.

Google also sells direct to individuals and households with Google Fiber, 
which is another of its moves to diversify away from over-dependence on 
advertising.

And Google isn’t the worst actor in the advertising business. The whole 
adtech/adfraud thing that Don writes so eloquently about is mostly a 
non-Google phenomenon.

But Google is still the highest mountain in the online advertising range, and 
in the throes of many moral conflicts. For a look at those, let’s examine 
some of what Brian says in his closing paragraphs…

> Everything Google does is done for our users.  Your happiness is always the 
> first priority, even above Ads.  (I've seen this in both policy and various 
> practical implementations.)

Not sure this is true, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt on that 
one.

> You are not product; you are our customers!

Wrong. We are Google’s *users*, or *consumers*. We have no contact of the 
sort a customer might enjoy, and have zero direct influence on the company. 
Yes, we have some control over settings, and so on. But our personal 
influence is nada. 

Google also goes out of its way to avoid the costs that having paid customers 
would involve. A high-up at Google once told me they’d never go B2C for a 
service like Google +, because (and this is close to verbatim) “We are an 
engineering company, not a service company. We don’t want to make less than 
$1 million per employee. We can’t do that as a direct service company, 
because we’d have to open call centers and hire lower-wage workers.”

But that was a few years ago. Might have changed a bit by now.

> That's simply the way we view it and it permeates the company from bottom 
> to top.  Everything is done to make a better service for you.

But without direct contact with us, it’s hard to tell what we do and don’t 
like. For example, being tracked all the time, and not knowing what’s being 
done with the tracking. 

Even if much of the tracking Google does is for our own good, the system is 
such a huge and opaque black box that we have little direct sense of how it 
works, or how to provide controls for it. It’s never fully clear where the 
line is between being drivers and being driven. And, either way, there is 
nearly zero sense of privacy with Google unless you turn off lots of useful 
stuff (such as ‘home’ or auto-complete entries in Google Maps).

All these things, and more, are why these Onion stories ring so creepily 
true-enough:

<http://www.theonion.com/article/google-responds-to-privacy-concerns-with-unsettlin-16891>

<http://www.theonion.com/article/google-announces-plan-to-destroy-all-information-i-1783>

<http://www.theonion.com/video/google-opt-out-feature-lets-users-protect-privacy--14358>

> Even Ads is viewed as a service to our users.  Random ads are garbage.  
> Useful ads are a benefit.  

And what are the externalities of all the ads nobody uses or sees? Or of all 
the tracking? Or of assuming, 100% of the time, that everybody is out to buy 
something? The effects  are non-trival, but discounted by blindered 
rationalizations like this one.

> Yes, it's also a benefit to our publishers and yes, it's also a benefit to 
> our shareholders.  Since when did win-win-win arrangements become a bad 
> thing?

How many people, right now, would pay for a switch in Google search, or 
Gmail, that turns off tracking and ads? That might be a win for Google, and 
for users who would rather be customers. But inside Google’s advertising 
bubble, that demand can’t be heard. (Same goes for Facebook, btw.)

> I won't claim that Google always gets it exactly right or that we haven't 
> made mistakes.  We don't and we have.  And we admit it.  And it will happen 
> again.  Sorry.  But everything is done with the right intent even if it 
> doesn't always work out as hoped.  Hindsight is perfect.

The “right intent” here is not informed by actual demand by users. It’s 
informed by wanting to do the right thing. That’s nice, but absent of much 
useful information.

Also, usage is not demand. It’s just usage. 

> Google is the most moral company in which I have ever worked.  But guarding 
> our users' privacy doesn't just make moral sense, it makes business sense.  
> If we purposefully violated our users' privacy, we wouldn't have a business 
> at all before very long.

Google’s makes lots of broad assumptions about what’s public and what’s 
private that are way out of alignment with what would be made obvious if they 
bothered to ask first. But they don’t want to do that, because (I’m guessing) 
they kinda know what they would hear. How moral is “ask forgiveness, not 
permission?” Not sure what the answer is, but that’s clearly how Google 
approaches the fuzzy boundaries of personal privacy. One huge example of that 
approach is Streetview, and the blowback Google got in Germany: 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View#Privacy_concerns>. 

FWIW, the main reason I didn’t go with Google for searls.com email was 
privacy. The service seemed good, and at least one very privacy-intensive 
company I know uses it. But alas, it has the same global privacy policy that 
covers everything Google does: 
<https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/>. For a service like this, 
the policy should be fully respectful, ironclad and not subject to change at 
Google’s whim. This one is not.

Doc