[IP] Re: Urgent Call For a Google At-Large Public Ombudsman
David P. Reed
dpreed at reed.com
Tue Jun 12 10:29:08 PDT 2007
Google needs more criticism. Both constructive and hostile. It's
odd that anyone thinks otherwise.
But I find this discussion odd. When a newspaper or government
creates a position of Ombudsman, the typical reason is that they find
themselves the target of withering criticism, in a bad place, and
want to earn back some trust. An Ombudsman, after all, starts out in
a very tough, corrupted position. Their salary is paid for by the
folks they are asked to criticize. Without a very strong external
source of hostility, an Ombudsman *cannot* be effective. I think if
you talk to any practicing Ombudsman, you will find that they agree.
(I'd be interested if they didn't, too.)
It would do Google a great deal of good to be under the threat of
serious anti-trust action. They are (IMO) a monopoly in their
market, and if that became settled law, there are a whole set of
rules they must follow as a result. Surely their corporate counsel
understand this, and while they will publicly fight such a decision
because it does hamper their potential returns to stockholders, the
anti-trust laws are the law of the land for a reason.
That some of the IP correspondents are fearful that they will be
harmed by Google if they say such things is troubling. It reflects
the fear that US society is operating under today - a "lawless
Department of Justice" may not be a correct description of the state
of things, but the actions of the DoJ and many practicing lawyers are
troubling. The goal of many actions seems to be to attack popular
dissent against actions of corporations and the government by using
the law as a weapon to harm dissenters, rather than using law as a
tool of justice.
Perhaps I'm foolish too. I have friends who work at Google, just as
I have friends who work at Microsoft. Just because they are friends
I don't think they should be "above the law", and just because they
have created great wealth for us all and also for their investors, I
don't think that gives them a free pass to do whatever they damn
please in the future.
So I think Lauren is wimping out in calling for an Ombudsman. Let
Google decide that it needs one, as a result of proper public
criticism of its actions. Perhaps rather than appointing an
Ombudsman, they will actually "do the right thing" which would be far
better than merely creating a whitewashing process.
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