Re: Privacy and the Google settlement (long, sorry)

[John Buschman <jeb224@georgetown.edu>]

I'll not go into a close textual reading of either posting. 
I'll only say two things:  first there were business analogies 
given of products libraries offer, and do not make privacy 
demands upon.  I argue that those are the wrong analogies in the 
case of Google, and they slide libraries farther along the 
spectrum toward business models.  This is not necessarily good, 
and there are still differences between nonprofits and for 
profits.

Second, words like "seismic" used to describe changes that "are" 
coming, and soon don't help.  There are so many assumptions 
larded into the second post, and they tend to be asserted, to 
reinforce one another.  Technological change has a long history, 
and it tends, like history itself, to be cumulative, not sudden 
and "seismic" (railroads are still around & even making something 
of a comeback).

The Google project faces a very, very large hurdle in the form of 
copyright, and that will not happen quickly.  Libraries all over 
are grappling with the gap between the potential of technology 
and the various restrictions on those potentials within copyright 
and various laws.  Google can't wave a magic wand and make all 
those go away.  These postings sound more like the rhetoric of a 
Wired article than the kind of calm analysis claimed.  Oh, and 
thanks to Linda Hopkins for the post on privacy - an integral 
part of libraries' "brand" (to use a current business term of 
art).

John Buschman

Rick Anderson wrote:

> On 7/28/09 5:50 PM, "John Buschman" <jeb224@georgetown.edu> wrote:
> I take exception to a number of assumptions here...
>
> John's response to my posting seems, in significant part, to be 
> a response to someone else -- someone who has argued that 
> Google should be invited to ....