Are Google, facebook and apple getting to big for the web? Are they a danger to the web as we know it?
These really are interesting questions. And the answer is probably “yes”. Maybe not today, but they will certainly become too big at some point! Unlike the person writing the article, I am not sure I would compare Google and facebook to totalitarian governments and after all, if you do not want to have a facebook account, well, no one is forcing you to have one! I also disagree with the idea that freedom of information means that everything must be available to everyone. Having a private online group if you so desire, isn’t that what freedom is all about? When Berners-Lee thought the web, wasn’t that the all point? Share what you will… or don’t, it surely must be up to us to decide what of our private life must be available for public viewing and what you would prefer to remain private (or within a private circle).
I think the real danger is not the companies on the web but rather the internet providers. In Paris for example, I find it very difficult to find a truly “free” internet connection. Almost everywhere, you need to have a password and username to connect to internet, therefore telling the “man” who you are and where you are when you are connected. If providers were allowed to get too big, they would probably be able to dictate which sites you would be able to access, and worst of all, which sites need to be censored… There I think lies the real danger!
I agree with part of what you say. Indeed, I believe that Berners-Lee is wrong by mainly identifying web threateners as Facebook, Apple, Google and by hardly mentionning very powerful companies such as wireless internet providers. Those can easily impact customers' navigation on the web by 'slowing traffic to sites with which they have not made deals', as Berners-Lee says. This is a way to censore some sites as well as to favour some other ones. These methods closely look like the information controlling systems of authoritarian governments such as China and they totally contravene the principle of open web as it has been desired by Berners-Lee at its creation. Such methods are dangerous in the sense that they impact on what customers want to buy, learn about or contribute to in the web.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as far as Facebook is concerned, I think the problem is not only related to the huge importance it has taken on social relationships thanks to the web. And so the question is not 'are we free or not to have a Facebook account?'. The issue is that Facebook collects all the data provided on our profiles, does not share them on the web but keep them for its own use. Such a system also contradicts the idea of an open web since it acts like a private business which only serves its own interests. That was not the original purpose of the web.