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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 370
Netizens-Digest Monday, March 19 2001 Volume 01 : Number 370
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] Usenet Community's Archives bought by Google
[netz] Google's Press Release concerning Usenet Archives
[netz] discussion about usenet archives
[netz] Google, Inc and the Online Community
[netz] National Academy of Science's new Internet DNS study
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 10:40:46 -0500 (EST)
From: jrh@ais.org (Jay Hauben)
Subject: [netz] Usenet Community's Archives bought by Google
Hi,
The following appeared on the Community Memory mailing list today 2/13/01.
The Usenet Archives represents the free contribution of millions of people
and is thereby a public good not a commodity to be bought and sold.
> From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@PANIX.COM>
> Subject: Re: [CM>] The Death of Usenet archiving?
> To: CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace
______________________________________________________________________
I have just heard from someone that Google is planning to buy the Usenet
archives from deja.com and they won't buy the front end so the archives
may be useless. I'm not sure of the details and will send more info when I
get it. But a reporter interested in doing a story on this situation asked
me what would be an appropriate place to have the archives housed. There
was some discusison on this a while ago (I think in October of last year)
on the Community Memory mailing list and I thought there was one offer
from someone at a university that their university might be willing to
support the archives.
Please write and let me know of such possibilities and I will
send them on to the reporter who is interested in this situation.
Thanks.
Ronda
ronda@panix.com
PS:
I just saw the press release that google put out - here's the url
http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/pressrelease48.html
The usenet archives posts shouldn't be for sale as we discussed
on this list.
But they do need a proper public or academic home to continue to
archive them and make them available.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 10:50:14 -0500 (EST)
From: jrh@ais.org (Jay Hauben)
Subject: [netz] Google's Press Release concerning Usenet Archives
From: Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@CIVICNET.ORG>
Subject: Re: [CM>] The Death of Usenet archiving?
To: CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
In-Reply-To: <200102131303.IAA18272@panix6.panix.com>
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace
______________________________________________________________________
On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Ronda Hauben wrote:
> I have just heard from someone that Google is planning to buy the
> Usenet archives from deja.com and they won't buy the front end
A press release on the subject just came across a newsgroup I read -
here's a copy:
- -------- =20
Google Acquires Usenet Discussion Service and Significant Assets from
Deja.com
Award-Winning Search Engine Launches Beta Version of Usenet Newsgroup
Search
=20
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - February 12, 2001 - Google Inc. today
announced that it has acquired Deja.com's Usenet Discussion Service.
This acquisition provides Google with Deja's entire Usenet archive
(dating back to 1995), software, domain names including deja.com and
dejanews.com, company trademarks, and other intellectual property.
Financial terms of this transaction were not released.
=20
Available now at http://groups.google.com, this powerful new Usenet
search feature enables Google users to access the wealth of
information contained in more than six months of Usenet newsgroup
postings and message threads. Once the full Deja Usenet archive is
added, users will be able to search and browse more than 500 million
archived messages with the speed and efficiency of a Google search. In
addition to expanding the amount of searchable data, Google will soon
provide improved browsing capabilities and newsgroup posting.
=20
"We welcome Deja's loyal users into the growing community of Google
users worldwide," said Larry Page, Google CEO and co-founder. "With
more than 500 million individual messages and growing fast, Usenet and
its thriving community is one of the most active and valuable
information sources on the Internet."
=20
"The acquisition of Deja's significant assets will enable Google to
offer an important new source of information to both Deja and Google
users," said Omid Kordestani, Google's vice president of business
development and sales. "We will continue to build and acquire the
necessary technologies to provide the best search experience to
millions of Google users worldwide."
=20
The award-winning Google search engine serves 70 million searches per
day, with approximately half of these searches performed on the
company's homepage at http://www.google.com. Google offers a wide
variety of custom search service products and currently licenses its
search technology to more than 120 companies in 30 countries.
=20
About Google Inc.
With the largest index of websites available on the World Wide Web and
the industry's most advanced search technology, Google Inc. delivers
the fastest and easiest way to find relevant information on the
Internet. Google's technological innovations have earned the company
numerous industry awards and citations, including two Webby Awards;
WIRED magazine's Reader Raves Award; Best Internet Innovation and
Technical Excellence Award from PC Magazine; Best Search Engine on the
Internet from Yahoo! Internet Life; Top Ten Best Cybertech from TIME
magazine; and Editor's Pick from CNET. A growing number of companies
worldwide, including Yahoo!, AOL/Netscape, and Cisco Systems, rely on
Google to power search on their websites. A privately held company
based in Mountain View, Calif., Google's investors include Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital. More information about
Google can be found on the Google site at http://www.google.com.
=20
###
=20
Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product
names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they
are associated.
=20
Google Contacts:
David Krane
650-930-3596
dkrane@google.com Cindy McCaffrey
(650) 930-3524
cindy@google.com
_________________________________________________________________
=20
=A92001 Google - Home - All About Google - We're Hiring - Site Map
- ----------------
**************************************************************************
The Center for Civic Networking =09 PO Box 600618
Miles R. Fidelman, President &=09=09 Newtonville, MA 02460-0006
Director, Municipal Telecommunications=20
Strategies Program=09=09=09 617-558-3698 fax: 617-630-8946
mfidelman@civicnet.org=09 =09=09 http://civic.net/ccn.html
Information Infrastructure: Public Spaces for the 21st Century=20
Let's Start With: Internet Wall-Plugs Everywhere=20
Say It Often, Say It Loud: "I Want My Internet!"=20
**************************************************************************
______________________________________________________________________
Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
Moderator: Community Memory
http://memex.org/community-memory.html
A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
Get this list in digest form: SET CYHIST DIGEST
Leave this list: SIGNOFF CYHIST
Send these commands to: LISTSERV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
______________________________________________________________________
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 12:43:12 -0500 (EST)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] discussion about usenet archives
Following is a post to the nettime achives from a discussion about
the problem that is presented by the Usenet archives sale by deja.com
to google.com
>From bbs.thing.net!owner-nettime-l Thu Feb 15 10:44:58 2001
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 08:36:04 -0500 (EST)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@ais.org>
To: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Subject: Re: <nettime> Usenet archives sold?
Sender: nettime-l-request@bbs.thing.net
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: Ronda Hauben <ronda@ais.org>
From: "Paul Alfred" <ppppalf@hotmail.com>
>S. (Sam) Kritikos wrote:
>>Folks, Ronda has the right idea here. I was wondering whether there are
>>any people here interested in exploring the idea of developing such an
>>organization or working with existing organizations in order to preserve
>>Internet archives?
>>
>"Say, that fancifully idealogical idea is swell! Does anyone else have any
>interest in doing the legwork to find some generous benefactor to foot the
>bill so that we accomplish the exact same thing some capitalist entity is
>going to accomplish anyway?"
The point I am making is the opposite. That business entities with bottom
line considerations aren't able to make the decisions that will support
the archiving, dessimination and scaling that Usenet and the Internet
require for their development.
The public library or academic library in the US has taken on such a
responsibility. In societies there are other forms of institutions than
corporations that are needed to serve the needs of citizens, to provide
for the public welfare.
And the Internet and Usenet have grown up out of those very institutions
themselves. However, in the US (and perhaps other countries as well) in
the last 5 years there has been a form of slaveholders' rebellion where
suddenly there are not to be any institutional forms other than the
corporate. See for example
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/centers-excellence.txt
In the US there is a government research institution like the National
Science Foundation that is charged with providing for the support of basic
research in science and technology. And ARPA was created for a similar
purpose and was able to perform the function with regard to the
development of computer technology in a very significant way. In the US it
had been the government that would be in a position to provide for
institutional forms for science and technology that would look ahead 10 or
20 years.
Corporations only look ahead 3 years in general.
To subject all the institutions of society to the viewpoint and
capabilities of corporations is to distort the society.
Government officials in the US, for example, have a constitutional
obligation to provide for the public welfare and the national defense.
When Bush was inaugurated he said that charities would take on the public
welfare, not the government, or that government would fund charities. In
the US it is government's constitutional obligation to provide for the
public welfare, neither charities nor corporations nor religious groups
can be substituted if that constitutional obligation is to be upheld.
But in the past decade (or two) the emphasis of the US government has been
oriented to how to help corporations prosper, not how to provide for the
public welfare.
It is important that the public institutional forms, the public purpose be
reinvigorated, not that one claim that because this is capitalism this is
irrelevant.
Citizens, not corporations are where sovereignty lies.
In the US this is a piece of the constitutional crisis that is facing US
society. When corporations prosper they get stronger and more powerful and
they seek to influence government and other institutions so that they
prosper further.
But corporations don't have a long range perspective. They don't look to
the future for the society. The society has developed other institutional
forms like public libraries and academic libraries to help provide for the
dissemination of printed literature.
It isn't that we expect companies to provide for libraries.
The digital forms are new forms. They need new institutional forms to
provide for their development. They need new public and academic
institutional forms.
Instead we are suddenly faced with the situation that corporations are all
that we are offered and only the narrow kind of activity they are capable
of will be allowed for the development of the Internet.
This not only flies in the face of the birth and development of the
Internet itself which came out of government supporting computer
scientists, supporting researchers in academic and other research
institutions, but also this flies in the face of the current development
of society.
>This Usenet argument isn't an argument about Usenet, or copyright, or that
>kind of stuff. It's just an expression of people's feelings toward
>capitalism. If we're going to debate this, let's debate the relevant
>argument --- is capitalsim bad? Does capitalism ruin the things that we
>like because it is capitalism?
Are you are saying that public libraries are about people's feelings
toward capitalism? Somehow this narrows down the question to a world where
only corporations are able to exist and there are no social institutions
only corporate ones.
There would be no Internet or Usenet if what you seem to be saying were
the case.
Those with the view that the corporate sector is everything would probably
agree with what you are saying, but they are only a very narrow sector of
modern society.
>Or maybe it's just about elitism. Does making a resource more available to
>the masses ruin it for me because I am no longer a cool, unique individual
>for using it? Believe me, I felt the same way once Dave Matthews Band
>became popular.
It's not that the corporations can or have made the Internet available for
the masses. In the US the free-nets perhaps set out to make the Internet
available to the masses but they needed more government support (and the
view that there was a need for government support) to have succeeded.
The narrow kind of corporate focused - "big pipe into the home and small
pipe out" that the corporate sector has as its vision is *not* the
Internet.
The corporate sector could create Compuserve, for example, not the
Internet. Compuserve didn't succeed, the Internet did. The myth of
corporate capability with regard to what is needed for Internet
development, is a significant myth.
If corporations were so capable they would be supporting the development
of the needed research to look 10 and 20 years forward for the development
of the Internet. They aren't so capable. But too much of the public
resourcs is going to support the corporate activity.
>No, this is probably more about capitalism. Let's discuss that if we're
>going to discuss this subject at all.
Then the discussion should be focused on corporations, not on what is
needed for the public dissemination and development and scaling of Usenet
and the Internet?
To the contrary, it would be more fruitful to look at how the Internet was
created and developed, at how governement can fruitfully support basic
research and what kind of basic research is needed for the scaling and
development of the Internet and Usenet.
What is needed to get access available to all.
There is a need for a public agenda, not to endlessly discuss the
corporate agenda.
Ronda
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 15:15:31 -0500 (EST)
From: jrh@ais.org (Jay Hauben)
Subject: [netz] Google, Inc and the Online Community
Hi,
After a year long fight to win Deja.com to turn its 5 year Usenet archive
over to a public or non profit entity so it would continue to be available
as a useful public resource, Deja sold its archives to Google, Inc. Ronda
Hauben has analyzed this situation and the contradictions it contains in
an article that appears in TELEPOLIS. It can be seen at :
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/7013/1.html
The title of her article is:
Culture Clash: The Google Purchase of the 1995-2001 Usenet Archive
And the Online Community
The article quotes Usenet pioneers and some of the 3800 Internet users who
signed an online petition to continue the archive as a public resource,
taking up the contradiction that might exist between the collaborative
online community and a for profit entity claiming ownership of the
compilation of the contributions from that community.
It would appear the questions raised in this article would be of
importance to netizens and it would be good if comments and opinions on
these questions appeared here on the netizens mailing list.
If any list member does not have access to the web I can send them an
ascii draft of this article.
Take care.
Jay
jrh@ais.org
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 10:48:52 -0500 (EST)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] National Academy of Science's new Internet DNS study
There's a new study of the Internet's DNS system that is being set up
at the National Academy of Science which is a policy institution
created by the US Congress to advise the US government.
The goal appears to be the same privatization of the Internet's public
infrastructure that has so derailed the activities of ICANN.
Internet Addressing and The Domain Name System: Technical
Alternatives and Policy Implications
URL:
http://www4.nas.edu/cp.nsf/Projects+_by+_PIN/CSTB-L-99-07-A?OpenDocument
And instead of learning from the mistakes of ICANN the choice
of the committee members that has just been announced (and which are
open to be commented on for a short period of time) include
several who were part of the process of supporting ICANN's
creation and development.
The scope for investigation for the committee narrows the online
community to
"Effective solutions must consider the potentially competing interests
of domain name owners and trademark holders; the different interests
of large multinational corporations, small business owners and
individuals; and public interests such as freedom of speech and
personal privacy."
from: Project Title: Internet Addressing and The Domain Name System:
Technical Alternatives and Policy Implications
Project Identification Number: CSTB-L-99-07-A
To see the Internet community as large multinational corporations,
small business owners and individuals, and to have these represented
on the committee as those to make the decisions for the future of
the Internet's infrastructure shows the US government's continued
lack of understanding of the need for effective channels of
communication and feedback into policy decisions for the whole Internet
community which includes the scientific and technical community,
the artistic community, the education community, etc.
The Internet was built on the basis of effective feedback, but
the efforts to privatize its infrastructure has tried to change
the course of the Internet and of the goal of its development.
Instead of learning from the effective development of the Internet,
the US government is trying to restructure Internet development
into the narrow confines of a narrow corporate model of society.
Unless one understands the nature of the feedback system that made it
possible to build the Internet, it will not be possible to effectively
scale the Internet. However, it appears that the US government is more
interested in privatizing the Internet's infrastructure than
in finding a way to scale it successfully.
ICANN is one indicator of the US government's misdirected policy goals,
and now the formation and composition of the new NAS committee
is another such indicator.
Ronda
ronda@panix.com
http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/birth_internet.txt
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
I am working on a paper about a governance model that set the
foundations for the Internet and would welcome comments on a draft
that I hope to have available soon. The ICANN fiasco has shown
that there is a need for a constructive model for Internet governance.
I welcome hearing from those who feel this is a need and who
are willing to try to collaborate toward this goal.
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #370
******************************
