OpEd: Pioneers such as Google need to be policed; Observer, 8/30/09

OpEd: Observer; Pioneers such as Google need to be policed:

"THERE HAS BEEN frenzied speculation in recent weeks that Apple is about to launch a revolutionary, hand-held device called the Tablet. Meanwhile, Google is mired in a protracted legal dispute over its right to create an online archive of the world's library books, including millions still in copyright. At first glance, these two pieces of news don't have much in common, but both are part of a battle being waged by the world's big-tech companies for dominance of the digital future.

One way to get a handle on the digital world is to think of it as a new, uncharted landmass, one that has become navigable thanks to the internet. Beyond this new frontier – a kind of 21st-century wild west – lies a terrain where scarcely unimaginable wealth is waiting to be unlocked. Only this time the key battle isn't over a physical resource but over a non-physical one: information. Information is the real estate of the digital age and it is this that the likes of Google, Microsoft and Apple are in the business of exploiting, whether by providing it free, by owning it or by controlling the channels through which it can be sold and delivered.

The opening up of this frontier raises big questions. What do we want the digital realm to look like? Do we want it to be controlled by a few large companies or should it be more pluralistic and democratic? The distrust that many of us feel toward a company such as Google (even while we enthusiastically use its products) stems from a fear that it may be seizing control of this territory before most of us even quite appreciated what was there.

We are both right and wrong to be worried. Right, because it is true that there is a potential for monopolies to be created, and because crucial legal rights, in particular, intellectual property, are in danger of being trampled on as we highlight elsewhere in the paper.

But at the same time, it is important to remember that we have reasons to be grateful for the existence of big, innovative corporations. Just as in the 19th century it was only the railway companies that had the muscle to "open up" the American west, so it is the Googles and Apples of our day that have the vision and wealth to unlock the resources of the digital realm. Apple can create wonders like the Apple Tablet because it has the money to hire the world's best inventors; and Google can scan most of the world's library books because it has the vision and chutzpah to undertake such a venture.

However, it is imperative that such companies are subjected to rigorous scrutiny and proper regulatory vigilance so that dangerous acquisitions of power don't take place."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/30/apple-google-microsoft-tablet-books