As part of my ongoing quest to stay abreast of major net issues, get ready for Web 2, and satisfy my editor’s desire to have interesting conversations for Business 2, I’m talking to Vint Cerf and Jonathan Miller this week. What should I ask them?
Your Help: Vint Cerf and Jonathan Miller
As part of my ongoing quest to stay abreast of major net issues, get ready for Web 2, and satisfy my editor's desire to have interesting conversations for Business 2, I'm talking to Vint Cerf and Jonathan Miller this week. What should I ask them?…
How about a question regarding AOL’s efforts in social networking and the relationship between these *new* efforts and the current AOL services (be they subs and/or messaging). I imagine the new services they could come up with would make them a significant player once again. Certainly the threat to the Yahoo community based ‘media’ model is there.
Miller –
^^^ Will AOL eventually get its own SEARCH ENGINE?
^^^ Considering the Head Start AOL had, why did it never invest in its own search engine, choosing instead to use the SERPS or others.
^^^ Could AOL consider compiling & releasing the Weekly Top Search queries.
^^^ What are your Three Favorite Web sites.
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Cerf –
^^^ Why can’t everyone who owns a domain name OPT for privacy as a rule. Much of the information required invades the privacy of owners. People should be able to opt-out or Publicizing such info as Phone Numbers, Addresses etc
^^^ What is your reaction to Internet 2.0
^^^ What will the evolution of The Internet be like in several decades.
^^^ Have you ever met Tim Berners Lee
^^^ Why didn’t Gopher suceed.
^^^ What was your impression of XANADU
^^^ Why has Bob Khan stayed in the Background
Vint Cerf:
Can Google continue to scale by adding servers and data centers or at some point is a fundamentally different approach going to be necessary?
When the telcos win the Net Neutrality debate, what’s Google’s Plan B?
What’s the worst case scenario if the telcos screw up net neutrality?
Vint, you’ve been outspoken on the topic of internet censorship. You famously said that the net interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it. You wrote the foreward to the 2003 report on internet censorship from Reporters Without Borders, before you joined Google. You’ve consistently argued that the antidote to government censorship is the critical thinking of users. But censorship is no longer being done just by governments, it is now implemented by the giant internet companies that *are* the internet for most people. How can the net “route around” censorship when the big internet companies themselves are the censors?
Now you’re “Chief Internet Evangelist” for Google, which has been widely criticized for compromising their principles to develop an efficient system to self-censor political expression on a massive scale. Although Google seemed to be conflicted about their decision, they still employed scarce engineering talent to develop the censorship technology that you’ve argued against. Can the net continue to “route around” censorship when the most important enterprises that *are* the internet for most people are themselves the censors?
Vint, you’ve argued that the net is like a blank sheet of paper, in that it doesn’t care what is written on it. Is this really still true, now that the companies that provide the bandwidth, routers, blogs, email, news and search have incorporated massive and efficient censorship systems directly into their products?
You’ve never been afraid to express your honest opinion, and I’d expect nothing less from you now, even though you’re employed by Google. Were you consulted on Google’s decision to censor news and search results, and if so, what was your advice? Do you believe that in Google’s case that the ends justify the means — that engaging with the Chinese government will eventually eliminate the need for censorship, but that developing censorship technology today was the price of that engagement?
Whoops, I think it was John Gilmore, not Vint Cerf, who said “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
For Cerf:
If a firm builds a new IP-based network with the intent of only providing a particular application – for instance, a proprietary wireless VoIP application – would network neutrality rules as currently conceived require that provider to provide equal access to other applications providers who wish to gain access to that network?
And don’t forget to thank him for his decades of work, without which I wouldn’t be typing in this question. 🙂
Vint: How can we protect children from pornography on the Internet? CP80.org advocates serving all pornographic content over a separate TCP/IP port and keeping port 80 “clean”. It would be hard to legislate, segregate, and enforce, but it is an interesting idea. It would essentially create different “channels” for content, the way cable TV works. What do you think of that or any other related ideas?
for miller: as google/msn/yahoo raise the stakes in the online advertising game and turn the focus to technology-driven advertising platforms, how can AOL keep pace? AOL’s sales team can quote CPMs, but they have nothing to say about truly contextual advertising. Without serious engineering talent, can AOL continue to play in this game? Or is it time to call Barry Diller and let him create scale with Ask?
Cerf:
Does Vinton like to give knowledge about Informatik on the University of California and how long he will do it. What kind of teach he make, like programming language and all the processes he teach.
Can the US government’s attempt to control and tax the Internet and its servers be seen as the first stages of censorship and prohibition? This is one of the way the current war on drugs (the other lost war) started in America = as a tax and regulation program.