Andrew Orlowski

Collected Journalism

Tag: Techno utopians

  • Web politics: The honeymoon is over

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Parallel moves in Canada and the US may signal the end of the honeymoon for web-based political campaigning – or change it beyond recognition.

    Politicians are becoming increasingly familiar with sudden squalls of email filling up their inboxes, and policy makers with responses to public consultations arriving via a web intermediary. But not surprisingly many of these can be phoney, inflating the true size of what purports to be "grassroots" campaign.

    The shortcomings of the web-based approach were illustrated here … Read More

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  • How the photographers won, while digital rights failed

    How the photographers won, while digital rights failed

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    How did the music business end up with a triumph with the new Digital Economy Act? How did photographers, whose resources were one laptop and some old fashioned persuasion, carry an unlikely and famous victory? How did the digital rights campaigners fail so badly?

    Back in January, a senior music business figure explained to me that Clause 17, which gave open-ended powers to the Secretary of State, was unlikely to survive the wash-up. But he didn’t much care; the … Read More

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  • Obama’s got a Google problem

    Obama’s got a Google problem

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Obama has created an exquisite problem by hiring so many senior executives from Google – some of the Oompa Loompas don’t seem to realise they no longer work for the company. Now a Congressman has called for an enquiry.

    The issue was made apparent when a trail of correspondence by administration official Andrew McLaughlin was exposed recently. McLaughlin is Obama’s deputy CTO – a freshly minted post, with CTO meaning either Citizens Twitter Overlord, or Chief Technology Officer – we … Read More

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  • Google abandons Search

    Google abandons Search

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    It’s hard to explain to people new to the web since 2004 – the Digg kids – the effect that Google had on the internet at the turn of the decade. They can’t conceive the Before and the After. Google was miraculous, and so much better than the competition that they effectively gave up trying to compete with it. But Google’s PageRank also unleashed social and political fads which reverberate right through to this day.

    Much of the junk science … Read More

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  • Kick me again, RIAA!

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    “ The anti-copyright gaggle has an insatiable need to feel victimized. Injustice burns deep, and is triggered by the merest hint that “The Man” might be tampering with one’s “bits”. Another example of technology utopians trying to bypass politics and claim victimhood – the Net Neutrality” campaign – shows very similar characteristics.”

    A while ago I joked that perhaps the RIAA had secretly recruited Charlie Nesson to be its court opponent. Everyone from Ray Beckerman at the “Recording Industry vs … Read More

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  • The Tragedy of the Creative Commons

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    The Creative Commons initiative fulfilled a major ambition last week – but it’s taken only days for the dream to turn to crap.

    Google granted the wish by integrating the ability to search images based on rights licences into Google Image Search. Yahoo! Image Search has had a separate image search facility for years, but Google integrated the feature into its main index.

    The idea of making the licences machine-readable was a long-standing desire of the project, and lauded as … Read More

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