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 > 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 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 To: nettime@bbs.thing.net Subject: Re: Usenet archives sold? Sender: nettime-l-request@bbs.thing.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Ronda Hauben From: "Paul Alfred" >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 # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net ------------------------------ 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 ******************************