From: William Gunn <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2015 10:38:05 -0700 Sean, you're right to be worried about surveillance and correct that opt-out is a poor solution. However, let's not lose sight of something here, lest we be accused of hysteria and lose credibility. The NSA got access to *private* emails and all other communications by tapping into inter-ISP data connections directly (with assistance from AT&T, Comcast, et al). Pearson just searched Twitter like any other public citizen. Best, William Gunn Head of Academic Outreach Mendeley | @mrgunn http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/william-gunn | On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 10:43 AM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > From: Sean Andrews <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2015 09:57:18 -0500 > > Perplexing indeed. For the record, it is possible to think both Google > and Pearson are evil. And it is also possible to make a distinction > between a free search and email provider I voluntarily use and a > testing monopoly that I (or my children or my students) am forced by > the state to comply with monitoring me in a separate space and using > their surveillance to get me in trouble with a public agency. > Admittedly, with Snowden's revelations, some of these distinctions are > getting murky - I volunteered to use gmail/google search/etc. and > Facebook, but I didn't assume the NSA (or private contractors like > Booze Allen) would so easily gain access to my private data. Perhaps I > should I have, but I didn't. On that front, there are plenty of > organizations also pushing for stronger legislation on data privacy. I > support their efforts too. > > Moral norms are not something we just write down and all agree with. > They emerge from struggle, often against entrenched institutional > power of one kind or another. This anxiety over Pearson is not in > contrast to the anxiety over Google or Facebook or even Twitter - > which just auctioned off a bunch of its "data" to some miners; it is > of a piece with these anxieties and dismissing them with the fact that > we are all "complicit" with their platforms is hardly acceptable. In > the 17th century, Hobbes said we were all complicit and consenting > citizens simply because we didn't leave the land of the Leviathan.* If > that's your idea of democracy, there are some folks in Silicon Valley > that would like to hire you to do some PR work at the next ALA. > > http://www.thebaffler.com/blog/mouthbreathing-machiavellis/ > > Though, it's worth noting these students aren't able to give consent > to Pearson and their parents have only the ability to give their voice > through exit - e.g. through the opt out movement - a la Hobbes which, > as Hirschman pointed out several decades ago, is a terrible way to > actually improve institutions, but is precisely the model advocated by > your Chicago school colleagues. Should we simply give up on the idea > of a public sphere? A private sphere? Any public regulation of the > private market? A state and market governed by norms we agree to > rather than formulated through boilerplate click through licenses and > free market assumptions of all agents having equal power in that > contract? Since you are on this forum - which is basically constituted > as a space to help equal out the power of the contracting parties in > the increasingly skewed U.S. library market - I seriously doubt you'd > agree with that, so why is it so different when we are private > citizens online? > > > > On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 5:43 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > > From: Michael Magoulias <[log in to unmask]> > > Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2015 02:57:51 +0000 > > > > This thread continues to perplex, but it's a useful indication of how > > contradictory the collective thinking is when it comes to assessing > > activities on the web. Anyone who is seriously concerned about the > > public at large being subject to digital surveillance should focus > > their attentions on the organizations that are the real offenders, > > namely Google and FaceBook. (And they certainly shouldn't be using > > Gmail.) What Google and FB do is infinitely more pernicious than this > > trivial incident regarding Pearson. > > > > There seems to be a drive to consign the same activity to "good" or > > "bad" buckets depending on how we feel about the actors. If you feel > > Pearson is evil, then their near-monopoly over standardized testing > > and monitoring of users will also be evil. If you think Google is > > good, or perhaps simply not evil, then their even greater > > near-monopoly over search and their far more successful track-record > > of invisibly stalking their users and monetizing the results will get > > a free pass. > > > > To me, this just shows that this is all still too new for us to be > > able to form coherent moral norms governing how people should be > > treated once it is possible to reduce them to a set of highly > > "actionable" data points, especially when they are seemingly so > > complicit in this reduction.