Re: <nettime> The Unconscious Performance of Identity: A Review of Johannes P. Osterhoff’s “Google”

[Owen Mundy <omundy@gmail.com>]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the positive response.

This is an important point you make below; that we've become accustomed to the conveniences we receive in exchange for giving up aspects of our private lives. Would these services actually cease to exist if tracking was forbidden? Maybe Google wouldn't be such a huge conglomerate, but they would likely be there. Maybe, as you point out below, users would gravitate to actual communities like Wikipedia, or StackExchange forums for example.

If sites were forced to honor it, and everyone in the world used a browser that supported do not track, or tools like Ghostery to deny the trackers their information, might it change the landscape of the net for the better? When IE took away View Source they were forced to respond to the feedback. Again, IE has finally started respecting standards because they saw their market share shrink. Facebook added a data export service in part because I built Give Me My Data.

Typically I'm OK with exchanging small parts of my life, but I live in a so-called "democracy" and don't have to worry about what I say about whom. But still I can't think of one website or company that serves ads or sells demographic information that I would miss if they went away. Maybe the Colbert Report, for a bit, but not for long. I could always go read Mark Twain instead. Google is handy, but as you point out, convenience is not always the best option for finding knowledge.

Best,

Owen

On Aug 28, 2012, at 10:57 AM, Nick wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 09:30:51AM -0400, Owen Mundy wrote:
>> I wrote a review of an online performance staged during Transmediale this year. Here is an excerpt and link:
> 
> Thanks a lot for sharing this, Owen, it was very thought-provoking;
> it was wonderfully framed. Issues of privacy and data sharing can
> easily become lost in a morass of muddy words, but this is clear and
> strong.
 <...>


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