[432] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] "Google Ombudsman" (Part II)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (privacy@vortex.com)
Sat Feb 28 18:26:54 2009
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:02:17 -0800
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"Google Ombudsman" (Part II)
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000510.html
Greetings. In my recent "Google's 'Failure to Communicate' vs. User
Support" posting, I renewed my long-standing call for an Ombudsman
"team" or equivalent communications mechanism for Google
( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000509.html ).
Subsequent reactions suggest that some readers may not be fully
familiar with the Ombudsman concept, at least in the way that I use
the term.
An Ombudsman is not the same thing as "customer support" per se. I am
not advocating a vast new Google customer service apparatus for users
of their free services. Ombudsmen (Ombudswomen? Let's skip the
politically correct linguistics for now ...) aren't who you go to
when search results are slow or you can't log in to Gmail for two
hours. These sorts of generally purely technical issues are the vast
majority of the time suitable for handling within the normal context
of existing online reporting forms and the like. (I inadvertently may
have caused some confusion on this point by introducing my previous
piece with a mention of Gmail problems -- but that was only meant in
the sense that those problems triggered broader discussions, not a
specific example of an issue appropriate for escalation to an
Ombudsman.)
But there's a whole different class of largely non-technical (or more
accurately, mixed-modality) issues where Google users appear to
routinely feel frustrated and impotent to deal with what they feel are
very disturbing situations.
Many of these relate to perceived defamations, demeaning falsehoods,
systemic attacks, and other similar concerns that some persons feel
are present in various Google service data (search results, Google
Groups postings, Google-hosted blog postings, YouTube, and so on).
By the time some of these people write to me, they're apparently in
tears over the situations, wondering if they should spend their paltry
savings on lawyers, and generally very distraught. Their biggest
immediate complaints? They don't know who to contact at Google, or
their attempts at contact via online forms and e-mail have yielded
nothing but automatic replies (if that).
And herein resides the crux of the matter. I am a very public
advocate of open information, and a strong opponent of censorship.
I won't litter this posting with all of the relevant links. I have
however expressed concerns about the tendency of false information to
reside forever in search results without mechanisms for
counterbalancing arguments to be seen. In 2007 I discussed this in
"Search Engine Dispute Notifications: Request For Comments" and
subsequent postings ( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000253.html ).
This is an exceedingly complex topic, with no simple solutions.
In general, my experience has been that many or most of the concerns
that people bring forth in these regards are, all aspects of the
situation considered fairly, not necessarily suitable for the kinds of
relief that the persons involved are seeking. That is, the level of
harm claimed often seems insufficient, vs. free speech and the
associated rights of other parties.
However, there are dramatic, and not terribly infrequent exceptions
that appear significantly egregious and serious. And when these folks
can't get a substantive reply from Google (and can't afford a lawyer
to go after the parties who actually have posted or otherwise control
the information that Google is indexing or hosting) these aggrieved
persons tend to be up you-know-what creek.
If you have a DMCA concern, Google will normally react to it promptly.
But when the DMCA is not involved, trying to get a real response from
Google about the sorts of potentially serious concerns discussed
above -- unless you have contacts that most people don't have -- can
often seem impossible.
Google generally takes the position -- a position that I basically
support -- that since they don't create most content, the
responsibility for the content is with the actual creator, the hosting
Web sites, and so on. But Google makes their living by providing
global access to those materials, and cannot be reasonably viewed as
beomg wholly separated from associated impacts and concerns.
At the very least, even if requests for deletions, alterations, or
other relief are unconvincing or rejected for any number of quite
valid reasons, the persons who bring forth these concerns should not
be effectively *ignored*. They deserve to at least get a
substantive response, some sort of hearing, more than a form-letter
automated reply about why their particular plea is being rejected.
This principle remains true irrespective of the ultimate merits or
disposition of the particular case.
And this is where the role of a Google Ombudsman could be so
important -- not only in terms of appropriately responding to these
sorts of cases, but also to help head off the possibility of blowback
via draconian regulatory or legislative actions that might cut deeply
into Google's (and their competitors) business models -- a nightmare
scenario that I for one don't want to see occur.
But I do fear that unless Google moves assertively toward providing
better communications channels with their users for significant
issues -- beyond form responses and postings in the official Google blogs,
there are forces that would just love to see Google seriously damaged
who will find ways to leverage these sorts of issues toward that
end -- evidence of this sort of positioning by some well-heeled Google
haters is already visible.
Ombudsmen are all about communication. For any large firm that is
constantly dealing with the public, especially one operating on the
scope of Google, it's almost impossible to have too much communication
when it comes to important problems and related issues. On the other
hand, too little communications, or the sense that concerned persons
are being ignored, can be a penny-wise but pound-foolish course with
negative consequences that could have been -- even if not easily
avoided-- at least avoided with a degree of serious effort.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
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