[iDC] Terms of Agreement: The Internet as Playground and Factory

[Michael Zimmer]

Dear all,

I've been enjoying these discussions, and have been trying to find a  
place to jump in. Here goes.

By way of introduction, I am Michael Zimmer, an assistant professor in  
the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin- 
Milwaukee. Previously, I was a fellow at the Information Society  
Project at Yale Law School.  My work revolves around issues of  
information ethics and information policy, focusing mostly on privacy  
& surveillance in various networked and "2.0" environments.

I had the privilege of editing a special issue of First Monday on  
"Critical Perspectives of Web 2.0" <http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/issue/view/263/showToc 
 >, which included an excellent contribution from Trebor.

Below, Christian Fuchs aptly notes that
> "As long
> as there is capitalism, there will be economic surveillance and the
> self-set enlightenment goal of attaining privacy for individuals will
> always be negated by corporate interests and resulting practices. This
> is like a negative dialectic of the enlightenment of Web 2.0.

I agree, and that's a point I'm trying to articulate both generally in  
the "Critical Perspectives" collection of articles, and more  
specifically relation to social networking sites in this blog post:  
"The Laws of Social Networking: Promote Open Flows of Information,  
Make Privacy Hard" <http://michaelzimmer.org/2009/06/13/the-laws-of-social-networking/ 
 >

In short, I identify three laws that govern the relationship between  
users and social networking services:

    1. Promoting the open flow of personal information allows maximum  
profitability
    2. Allowing user control over their information flows is counter  
to profit maximization
    3. Provide some privacy controls, but make it hard

This was in response to an excellent paper titled “The Privacy Jungle:  
On the Market for Data Protection in Social Networks”  by Joseph  
Bonneau and Sören Preibusch. <http://preibusch.de/publications/Bonneau_Preibusch__Privacy_Jungle__2009-05-26.pdf 
 >   The authors propose a new economic model to explain the observed  
under-supply and under-promotion of privacy as a rational choice by  
competing social networking providers. They conclude that "websites  
seek to maximise their desirability to both populations by not raising  
privacy concerns for the majority of users, while minimising criticism  
from the privacy-sensitive."  In short, SNS game their users by  
providing just enough privacy to appease privacy advocates, but make  
the controls obscure and difficult so users don't actually adjust (and  
thereby constrict) their information flows.

Christian then suggests:
> An alternative  is in my opinion to build and support non-commercial,
> non-corporate social networking sites and "Web 2.0" platforms as a  
> form
> of anti-corporate struggle.


This reminds me of #8 and #10 the "10 Web 2.0 Theses" just published  
by Geert Lovink <http://bit.ly/Zwr74>, where Lovink and his  
collaborators call for injecting more "kaos" into Web 2.0, and the  
promotion of "peer-education that shifts the default culture of auto- 
formation to the nihilist pleasure of hacking the system".

So, two queries for the list:

1) As I try to build the "Laws of Social Networking", how do I best  
articulate the tension between users' desire to control their  
information flows, and the providers' desire to capture those flows  
for profit?

2) Given the need to inject chaos into Web 2.0, and promote education  
of new users, how do we, in the words of Lovink, "avoid the double  
trap of blind technophilia and luddite technophobia"?

Best,
-michael
-- 
Michael Zimmer, PhD
Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies
Associate, Center for Information Policy Research
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
e: zimmerm at uwm.edu
w: www.michaelzimmer.org



On Jun 16, 2009, at 6:55 AM, Christian Fuchs wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I agree with Korinna that the issue of the terms of use is a complex
> power problem. And I disagree with Cynthia that it makes sense to  
> write
> down reasonable terms of use for social networking sites or other
> Internet platforms.
>
> The problem is that the social relation between Internet companies and
> users is one of fundamental inequality that is structured by class
> power. It is an inequality in the power to define the terms of use  
> that
> is based on corporate power. Strategies such as the commenting on  
> terms
> of use now offered by Facebook are undemocratic legitimatization
> strategies. The corporate player defines the rules and the users are
> allowed to comment. This does not sound like participation, it sounds
> like plebiscitary power. It somehow reminds me of a political model  
> with
> the name Volksgemeinschaft that was popular some 70 years ago.
>
> There is an intrinsic capitalistic motivation of Internet corporations
> to commodify users and user data in order to accumulate capital. As  
> long
> as there is capitalism, there will be economic surveillance and the
> self-set enlightenment goal of attaining privacy for individuals will
> always be negated by corporate interests and resulting practices. This
> is like a negative dialectic of the enlightenment of Web 2.0.
>
> The only reasonable thing to do is in my opinion to work towards the
> abolishment of capitalism and to support and engage in anti-corporate
> class struggle. It is an illusion to think that consumers can  
> negotiate
> "fair" terms of use with Internet corporations. This is a false  
> liberal
> illusion of reforming capitalism and of consumer sovereignty. An
> alternative  is in my opinion to build and support non-commercial,
> non-corporate social networking sites and "Web 2.0" platforms as a  
> form
> of anti-corporate struggle. It is not about reforming Facebook,  
> MySpace
> etc - it is about engaging in a class struggle that creates viable
> alternatives to these platforms so that corporate SNS will in the end
> vanish. As long as such corporate platforms exist and people use them,
> there will be problems with corporate surveillance, privacy, etc. I am
> not optimistic that much will be done against corporate power, but I  
> am
> sure that something needs to be done.
>
> Best, Christian
>