[WEB4LIB] RE: More on Google going commercial

[Karen G. Schneider]

Actually, Walt, most of us are quite capable of making this distinction,
and most of us also have far too nuanced an appreciation of market
forces to subscribe to "four legs good, two legs bad."

To repeat what I actually said, I also believe that when an
organization's primary motive is profit-driven (and LII itself is a
state-funded resource), ultimately they march to a different drummer
than when the organization's primary goal is to provide public service.
Their allegiance is different, their priorities are different, and their
reason for being is different, as well.  They are driven by the ethics
of ensuring their shareholders don't lose their money--a laudable goal,
but far different, and leading to far different outcomes, than the
ethics of public information service.

No, Google doesn't don't sell relevance.  But someone already brought up
that Yahoo started as a free service.  Now look at it... that's not to
say every business is going to end up on the same plane (for that
matter, I run a business, and I strive to be good), but if Yahoo were
still free, I doubt it would be peddling relevance. 

The government will indeed not step in to fund anything--unless it is
invited to do so, and in that case, who knows what could happen?  Yahoo,
again.  Two folks from Stanford.  That's all it took. 

'Nuff said, for me. 

Karen G. Schneider
Coordinator, Librarians' Index to the Internet

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::If we (the library community) can't distinguish between
::
::a. Ability to survive
::and
::b. Subversion of ethics
::
::then we're all in serious, serious trouble.
::
::Google is a private concern. They have taken clearly-labeled,
::clearly-differentiated steps to be profitable (aka survive).
::
::Those steps clearly do not involve hidden "relevance" placements.
Google's
::people have even gone on record as saying that they see ethics as
being
::one
::of their competitive advantages.
::
::If we (the library community, again) simply say "Commercial: Bad,
::unethical." then you can kiss Google goodbye--and anyone else trying
to do
::a proper job of indexing the unindexable.
::