Technology

Debating Google in Bath

March 01, 2010
article header image
The grand regency chamber at the heart of Bath's Guildhall is an incongruous place to be talking about search algorithms and digital privacy. Courtesy of the rather excellent Bath Literature Festival, however, that was exactly where I found myself this Sunday, debating whether Google is good for you in the company of Tim Kelsey, Heather Brooke and our chair, Tiffany Jenkins. I kept expecting to see a bonnet or two nodding in the audience, but no such Austenesque accoutrements were to be found. In fact, there was little technophobia of any kind, with the debate leaning strongly towards the opinion that governments and states were the people you really wanted to worry about—and that the great task is to lobby and scrutinise them mercilessly in the hope that they'll hold private companies to account in turn.

There was, though, an interesting moment of silence on our part when we were asked what might or can be done to curb Google's dominance of the search and online advertising industries. In honesty, nothing much at present was about the sum of my answer, although Tim and I agreed that quasi-monopolies have a habit of not lasting. More transparency all round was the battling cry, with the added injunction on Tim's part that citizens have to realise that their contracts with the welfare state must trump many "privacy" concerns if they wish standards to be upheld and scandals avoided. Heather did not entirely agree on this point: indeed, her next book, The Silent State, will examine the question of just how far the state has encroached on citizens' privacy and rights in Britain.

I finished off with a meditation on the unintended consequences of one company having so much power—and, as it sometimes seems, so little appreciation of the value and values of the older media whose business models it's hollowing out. And then I was off for a cup of tea and a blessed afternoon away from the terrors of my inbox…

The Bath literature festival continues until Sunday 7th March, with daily debates sponsored by Prospect exploring everything from high culture to whether the French really are best at everything.