the i-witnesses

‘Information revolution’ or war of the search engines?

In recent weeks the London underground train billboards have been plastered with adverts inviting commuters to join an ‘information revolution’. The campaign grabbed my attention because it implicitly attacked Google’s domination of the online information business.

Like many others, I was intrigued to find out about their alternative vision, and visited the ‘information revolution’ website. At first glance the site is designed and branded as though it’s campaigning for an alternative search engine:

“You need several sources of information in order to get a balanced view of the world… And this is the spirit of the internet - choice.”

It even has ‘famous’ UK personalities endorsing the ‘campaign’. But it soon becomes clear that this is merely a convoluted publicity vehicle for the search engine ask.com.

It’s all very misleading, and – judging from some of the comments on its message board – has left many of its ‘rebels’ feeling betrayed. As one blogger puts it, the campaign demonstrates the “fatuity of hijacking the counterculture”.

I’m sure the company will pay for its sorely misjudged PR disaster.

Rest in peace Registerfly.com

Last Friday, ICANN issued a notice to Registerfly.com – an internet domain name registrar which holds two million domain names and has over 900,000 customers – indicating that its ICANN accreditation will cease on 31 March 2007.

The announcement follows a rift between business partners Kevin Medina and John Naruszewics in January. In the ensuing chaos, thousands of domain names have broken down; the service has been so poor that angry customers have set up their own forum www.registerflies.com.

When the complaints started to flood in, ICANN’s ombudsman advised customers to go direct to Registerfly. But many were left wondering where ICANN’s responsibility lay – after all, it had originally approved Registerfly as a registrar and allowed its logo to be used on Registerfly’s website.

ICANN has finally decided to intervene and terminated Registerfly’s accreditation. This is yet another case in the confused realm of internet governance, where the question of who controls what is still blurred – sadly at the cost of internet users.

Why I’m worried by Amartya Sen’s take on India’s IT sector

Last month, Nobel prizewinner Amartya Sen spoke at India’s National Association of Software Services and Companies (NASSCOM) about the state of the country’s IT sector. Here’s my take on what he said.

His basic argument was that the IT industry must do more for Indian society at large:

“I want to speak about the possibility of the Information Technology industry to reach out beyond its principality, about the case for the industry to bring its influences somewhat beyond what can be seen as its traditional domain… It already makes enormous contributions. My point, rather, is that it can do even more.”

This idea is based on Sen’s so-called ‘capability approach’ – in a nutshell, that dignified living and freedom from poverty rest on non-material factors such as political participation, and access to information and resources:

“[There is a] foundational connection between information and social obligation, since the moral – and of course the political – need to pay attention to others depends greatly on our knowledge and information about them…. More information in itself goes a long way to breaking that chain of apathy and indifference.”

All perfectly laudable… But Sen then invoked a historical analysis to rationalise – or should that be romanticise? – how India has acquired its penchant for specialist (including IT) skills:

“There has been a historical respect for distinctive skills, seeing it even as a social contribution in itself. Indeed, even the nasty caste system, which has so afflicted the possibility of social equity in India, has tended greatly to rely on — and exploit — the traditional reverence for specialised skill, which, in its regimented form, has been used to add to the barriers of societal stratification.”

At this point my alarm bells started ringing… Sen clearly acknowledges the ‘nastiness’ of the caste system and its exploitative nature. But his analysis of the caste system’s contribution to India’s undeniably successful IT sector – in terms of revering ‘specialised’ skills – is a worrying depiction of a ‘good thing’ arising from a ‘bad system’.

Sen knows perfectly well that this ‘specialisation’ of the caste system has also condemned many in lower castes to professions such as manual scavenging and constructing latrines (which continues today, despite being prohibited in 1993). This stems from the fact that ‘intellectual sciences’ such as astrology have traditionally been respected by the Hindu religion, whereas knowledge systems involving physical labour are considered menial.

As a result, millions of Indian people are still denied the opportunity to realise their full potential. Surely this situation is precisely the opposite of Sen’s capability approach?

[In response to Dipankar's suggestion, here's Gail Omvedt's article 'Untouchables in the world of IT']

Microsoft weighs in to the online library debate

Last month I blogged about Google’s plan to ‘liberate’ hardbound books by creating an online global library. Today Microsoft accused the project of systematically violating the copyright of authors.

As part of ongoing rivalries between Microsoft and Google the former launched its own ‘Live Search Books’ service last December, which currently provides access to non-copyrighted texts. Their clients include the British Library, University of California and University of Toronto.

The Authors Guild – a professional association for American writers – opposes Google’s initiative because it digitises books from various libraries without the written consent of individual authors. In contrast, according to Microsoft’s Danielle Tiedt, its service will only digitise copyrighted books when prior consent has been obtained.

But hold on a minute… As an alumnus of the London School of Economics, I’m allowed inside the library to read its books. But I’m not allowed to copy material, and I cannot access Microsoft Office programmes on the computer system. The librarian told me: “The contract with Microsoft is exclusive to students”.

So much for Microsoft’s principles. Of course, we all know that corporations are ruthless when it comes to making profits – whether they are Microsoft or Google. But my question is: what legal right do libraries (which are often publicly funded) have to hand over ‘their’ knowledge to commercial organisations?

East Africa’s cable system not so EASSy after all

The East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) – an ambitious but controversial multi-million dollar project to wire a huge swathe of Africa – has been renamed the ‘NEPAD Broadband Infrastructure Network’. It seems the name-change was prompted by Kenya – a key partner in EASSy – dropping out of the scheme.

So what does this mean for the project’s future? According to South Africa’s communications minister, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, the Network will be African-led with limited involvement of ‘foreigners’. It will now be financed by three subsidiary companies (so-called Special Purpose Vehicles), each one managed by different stakeholders:

•         government for fixed lines
•         government and private sector for private telecommunication networks
•         foreign-owned telcommunications operators for under-sea cable systems

This ‘club’ model (which allows players to invest exclusively in certain areas) is a significant step away from the ‘open access’ approach (whereby telecom companies, internet providers, government etc could invest openly in EASSy) that had been advocated by international institutions like the World Bank and some civil society organisations.

The response to this shake-up has not been entirely positive. CIPESA’s Anthony Mugeere raises concerns about NEPAD’s “bureaucratic protocol issues” and the likelihood that it will slow down the whole process.

Matsepe-Casaburri is quoted as saying: "We wanted to avoid the club-type situation we have had with the (Telkom) SAT-3 undersea cable, but this did not sit well with a number of other countries and institutions." It appears that she chose not to elaborate on her comment when she realised that the media were present.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a great deal of faith when a communications minister clams up in front of journalists!