The Bruce Report

How morbidly appropriate that the vanguard of the new despotism does not march against hapless villagers in some Third World country, but sits malignly on the desks of countless rich westerners who remain either ambivalent or oblivious to its daily assaults on their rights and freedoms.

            Democracy’s arch-villain in the age of the Internet is not a tin-pot dictator with pillaging and killing on his mind. It’s a social-networking tool whose masters seem to think their customer’s personal information is a fungible, publicly available commodity.

            And so it was we witnessed, earlier this week, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddard lowering the boom (or was it a fly-swatter?) on that ubiquitous omnicorp Google for introducing a new Web 2.0 platform that plumbs user accounts for any juicy factoid or predilection which might enhance the search engine’s appeal to online advertisers.

            According to a National Post story: “Of particular concern was a feature that would comb through a Gmail inbox and identify people the user emailed the most, automatically adding those people as followers without the user’s consent. One blogger lashed out at Google for adding an abusive former boyfriend as a follower and displaying private information to him.”

            Stoddard was, reportedly, “very disappointed. . .We have seen a storm of protest and outrage over alleged privacy violations and my Office also has questions about how Google has met the requirements of privacy law in Canada.”

            For its part, the corporate behemoth has apologized, tearing up in decidedly crocodilian fashion. Privacy laws? How quaint? What’s that, exactly?

            This is not the first time a social-networking purveyor has run afoul of Canadian legislation. Last year, Facebook endured similar opprobrium for virtually identical sins. It, too, promised to clean up its act. But, in fact, why should it? Why should any of the Web 2.0 players – which remain among the least-regulated, least-transparent businesses in the world – change their ways?

The hype surrounding social media is nearly deafening. According to some reports, 73 per cent of Americans and 64 per cent of Europeans are online. In fact, Vancouver-based research firm Ipsos Reid estimates that that Canadians spend 5.4 hours a week accessing social networking sites. Specifically, it says, 37 per cent of Internet-enabled adults in this country regularly visit online communities, while 29 per cent maintain profiles. Nearly 63 per cent of the 18-34 demographic are visitors, and 55 per cent are active “profilers”. Meanwhile, 29 per cent between the ages of 35 and 54 are lurkers, while 21 per cent chat happily in their virtual spaces. Even older folks are getting with the program: In the 55 and over demographic, nine per cent are visitors while the same fraction maintain profiles.

The leading “thinkers” on the growth, character and economic impact of the social media include Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of U.S.-based Forrester Research Inc. In one of their recent books, the contend: “By 2007, 12 years into the Web era, online advertising had reached $14.6 billion (USD) in the United States alone and approached $10 billion (USD) in Europe. Advertisers know that traffic indicates that consumers spend their time and attention online and act to translate that attention into advertising power. While advertising is not the only way to make money online, it’s growing so rapidly that any venture that creates significant traffic can count on revenues.”

            Under the circumstances what, precisely, can governments do? Issue complaints? Levy fines? Black out such services altogether? None of which seems either productive or feasible when so many of us (including Yours Truly) are prepared spend a good chunk of our lives in the free-wheeling, online frontier of chat rooms and groups.

            Then again, if we are, maybe we get what we deserve. Social networking has become a surrogate for real dialogue. And like any surrogate relationship, there’s a price to pay for inserting a broker into our conversations. This is the emerging autocracy, cultivated and fertilized by our rabid consumerism.

            In the end, real freedom is for telephone-talkers, letter-writers, and dinner-party-chatterers.

            It’s not for “facebookers”.

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