Netopia has reported on how bad guys abuse domain names for Covid-scams. Not saying Oxford university reads Netopia, but it has come to very similar conclusions as the report we quoted. Here is a fresh press release from Oxford Internet Institute:

OII | Tech companies continue to provide online infrastructure for contentious Covid-19 websites even after flagging them as fake news, finds new Oxford study — Oxford Internet Institute

Listen to what professor Philip N Howard has to say.

“Google and Facebook may flag content for being problematic on their social media networks but are still providing fundamental infrastructure for that content and supporting the revenue streams that make the purveyors of such content financially viable.”

The problem is built into the business model of the internet platforms with no incentive for real change. Flagging fake news looks like the proverbial lipstick on a pig. We don’t regulate them, they regulate us.

How do we make real change? Can’t promise the full answer, but some ideas at the KYBC-seminar hosted by MEP Alex Agius Saliba in European Parliament next week. This writer will be the humble moderator. Don’t miss.

One of the oldest jokes about the internet is “On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog”, by cartoonist Peter Steiner, first published in the New Yorker magazine in 1993. While the opposite is also true – internet platforms know more about us than we do ourselves sometimes – it is still relevant today. Bad actors can be invisible behind intermediaries – hosting providers, advertiser networks, payment services and so on. Netopia’s cartoonist Rodrigo makes his own interpretation of the classic cartoon: Know Your Arms Dealer Customer

As Europe awaits the Digital Services Act, this conversation is bigger than ever: can European policy find a balance where bad actors can be held to account? By requiring such intermediaries to know who they deal with? Except, does that not risk falling into the other pit – violation of privacy? Is not the anonymity part of what makes the internet great? Well, that can be debated but a simple way to avoid it is to focus on business users. A business does not have human rights (those are exclusive to humans, duh!). Enter “know your business customer”. No risk of privacy violation because there is no privacy to violate in the first place.

How broad this topic is, can be demonstrated with the report on how the domain name system was abused in the corona-crisis. Fraudsters registered domains marketing non-existent covid-tests, vaccines or treatments, a blatant attempt to exploit people’s fears. Netopia interviewed Tom Galvin who wrote a report on the topic. He recommends a broad approach with regulatory action, law enforcement and education. In this context, an intermediary that may be less obvious is ICANN, the body that operates the domain name system.

What about the administrative burden? Would a system where various kinds of intermediaries have a duty to know about their business customers be an obstacle to innovation? Red tape for SMEs? Not necessarily, the burden is on the service provider and the EULAs are already like 27 pages in many cases. Maybe for new platforms, but all the other barriers to entry make this pale in comparison. May even be a business opportunity, competing with trust. Look at dating apps, they verify users in various ways in order to weed out “catfish” – no need for government intervention there, no breaking of the internet, just the demand for a trusted environment where one can… you know open one’s bleeding heart and hope for comfort.

Which brings me to the last point: in a perfect world, the internet platforms would take such precautions without pressure from the law-maker. Look at how the games industry provides age recommendations in the Pan-European Game Information-system. Or look at how the news media upholds it publishing standards via independent “Ombudsmen”. Never too late for Big Tech to step up and stop saying “it would break the internet”.

On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog. Unless you’re a business.

Nobody has explained Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act better than Wired Magazine’s editor in chief Nick Thompson the other day in a tweet:

Why does section 230 allow tech companies to moderate content? Bc the previous law was like one saying swimming pools were liable for drowning deaths if they had lifeguards, but not if they didn’t. The point of 230 is to fix those nuts incentives.

This was in response to news that Republicans seek to amend Section 230. In a parallel policy-development, which Netopia has commented on before, Big Tech is pushing to bring the liability immunity from CDA230 to European policy, for example in the Digital Services Act.

Now, Thompson’s tweet begs this question: Should we not worry more about the drownings than the liability? The take-away should not be no liability anywhere, but policy to minimize the drownings. Speaking metaphorically.

This is the blind spot for Big Tech, the failure to acknowledge that there are some actual problems that must be addressed, instead worrying about threats to “innovation” (=current business model) or “breaking the internet” (=Big Tech’s monopoly on regulation). The supposedly threatening policies are a consequence of Silicon Valley’s failure to deal with the fallout of its own business. Google says thai restaurants depend on its services to stay in business in the pandemic, while it fails to deal with disinformation campaigns – such as anti-vaccine – that also depend on those same services.

Clean up your swimming pool, Big Tech.

Online advertising—the business model that made Big Tech’s fortune—is under attack. Legislators and regulators on various levels take stabs at the incumbent platforms, with competition or privacy motives. Around the corner is new European legislation such as the ePrivacy regulation and the Digital Services Act that may further restrict Silicon Valley’s profitable trade in our personal data. Yes, it is called advertising, but personalized ads are of course more like selling personal data, making sure the ad is seen by the potentially most profitable eyeballs. Surveillance and privacy violation are the foundation of freenomics, not a side effect. However, other problems may be greater still. (And there is an answer; read on!)

Disruptive innovation based on free/ad-based/surveillance economy business models is like the famous cartoon of the man sawing off the branch he sits on. Somebody has to buy the ads that fill the platforms’ bank accounts. As one industry after another is disrupted by those same platforms, other players must arrive to buy the ads. Perhaps new industries can fill the gap, but the problem with disruption remains. The advertising model may be time-limited for that reason.

A few years ago, I had the chance to talk to Professor Hal Varian, chief economist at Google and the architect of the AdWords auction system that provides such a big chunk of Google’s revenue from search ads. He offered a different reason why ads may not live forever: fatigue. Attention is scarce, and we want fewer ads rather than more. Then he said, “Google may move to paid services.” (Netopia has not received enough credit for this scoop, in my humble opinion!)

Regulation, disruption, fatigue… if ads are doomed, must we start paying for e-mail, storage, and image sharing? Not so fast, there is a better free. Pioneered by the games industry, the free-to-play, or freemium, model combines the best of both worlds. Most players play for free; some choose to pay for special features or in-game content. With no surveillance, the integrity of the supplier-customer relationship remains intact. Real money from actual consumers. The games industry is hugely successful, expected to grow from 150 billion dollars in 2019 to more than 250 billion in 2025, according to forecasts. There is little reason the freemium model could not be applied to other digital offers besides games.

The European policymakers may take note that the games industry is one of Europe’s few digital champions. Want to find the next digital business model? Look no further.

What if someone were to make a scale 3D-model of your city, in virtual reality? What if they were to invite certain people to interact with that model, adding a layer of perception that is only available to some? What if they sold ad space in there? The banners in your metro car replaced by other advertisers’ banners in the virtual version of that same metro car?

You guessed it, this is not one blogger’s pipedream, but the next moonshot from Silicon Valley: Facebook’s “Project Aria”. As of September, a number of Facebook employees wear a particular set of spectacles which record what they see, creating a virtual 3d-model. Unlike Google Glass, the point is not to deliver services to the wearer (at least not at this stage), but to map out the world. To create a model of the world that a machine can understand. Google Streetview on steroids. If the resolution of GPS-satellites is maybe one meter, and Google Streetview maybe one decimeter, Project Aria could be another order of magnitude higher resolution.

Once someone has that data, the opportunities are huge: self-driving cars? No need to train them in real traffic, run the simulation in the virtual city. Want to train an AI on mobility patterns? The data is there. Who could compete with that, short of collecting a similar data set? What a competitive advantage for Facebook.

Next, how about pivoting the tech, so that the wearers can also receive information? This is where the ad space in the metro cars come in. Plus scores of other potential services. Unlike previous failed attempts (yes, looking at you Google Glass), the service provider understands the wearer’s context because they have built a scale model of the world.

Virtual reality is at the moment more like virtual potential. There are some cool virtual reality games, some business applications and other promising ideas. But the break-through is yet to come. The biggest bottleneck is building the market, a critical mass of devices. Much like the smartphone break-through a decade ago, a good device launched by a company that understands the market could make it happen in a short time. Too soon to say that Oculus Quest 2 will be to VR what Iphone was to smartphones, but it is no coincidence that the company behind it is… Facebook. In August, Facebook caused an outrage among Oculus users when it announced that a Facebook account will be needed for future headsets.

This raises many questions: who will be able to compete with Facebook for the virtual space? Where does this put Europe – once again stuck between the rock that is the United States and the hard place that is China? Privacy, Schrems, Data Shield… who will own the VR-data and what are the consequences? Who will write the rules for the virtual world?

Also, this brings back to life a classic intellectual property battle: remember the panorama-debate? The light show on the Eiffel tower has artistic quality and is there for protected by intellectual property rules. Permission needed for broadcasts or recording for commercial purposes et cetera. Most people say “whatever” (this writer saw it more as a proxy for other intellectual property battles). But what about the virtual metro car and the banner ads? Or what about virtual banner ads on… let’s say La Louvre? Is that the exclusive domain of the provider of VR-services? Perhaps the panorama-debate was ahead of its time.

Familiar patterns play out in the Southern hemisphere. After the copyright fight in South Africa, Australia is next in line – this time about news. The digital struggles of the newspapers are well-known: ad money moved to tech platforms, paper-subscriptions almost gone and only a few in each language can be successful with digital subscriptions. Who cares? Had it been about toothbrushes or diets maybe no problem, but with no independent media… well, it gets ugly. Add to this that not only did Big Tech provide every conspiracy theorist (“Why is there so little focus on X? What are THEY trying to hide?”) with tools to broadcast their message to a potentially unlimited audience, it also brought algorithms to amplify it over less polarizing content.

One does not have to love tabloids in order to understand why policy-makers want to do something about the problem. A popular option is to force the tech platforms to share some of its revenue with those who provide the news content they monetize. The European Union was first through the gate. And earlier this month it was Australia’s turn. Silicon Valley’s response follows the same playbook:

The Monopolist’s ultimatum – “if this goes through we kick you out from our platform”

The Besserwisser – “actually your business is better off with our deal” (as if the news organisations could not make that call for themselves)

The All Content Is Equal – “it would be unfair to other content creators” (yeah also to the trolls)

Except if this is not the answer what is? The benefit of news media is that it has standards, educated editors, ambitions toward accurate and unbiased reporting. Not successful every time, but many others don’t even try or actively spread lies. Surely, that must be worth something.

Silicon Valley’s response is not very constructive. More like a kid holding their breath to get ice-cream for dinner. The answer to bad speech used to be more speech. That didn’t work. Let’s try true speech.

There is some cause for optimism: BuzzFeed’s FinCen Files-scoop is classic “muck raking”-style reporting and has upset some of the world’s most powerful institutions. Impressive progress for a website that started out with quizzes about celebrities’ sunglasses. BuzzFeed runs on a combination of ads and donations. That’s great, but won’t work to cover your local city hall.

No, that’s not a movie with unusually lame superheroes. Bear with me. I wrote recently about the copyright reform in South Africa. It led me to find out more, it was astonishing and oddly connected to my home country Sweden.

The proposed new copyright legislation was sent back to parliament by president Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this summer. That was a wise move, had it passed things would have become very weird.

Irony: part of the reason for the copyright reform was to be part of the international internet treaties. But the World Intellectual Property Organisation (you know, the UN institution) pointed to the lack of protection for so-called Technical Protection Measures: a catch-all phrase for the various kinds of log-ins, watermarks, copy-protections, server verifications and so on that digital content services apply to give the paying audience access, but not the free-riders. That’s right: “new services” – the only common ground in all fights over digital copyright, would not be possible in the proposed legislation.

Milk-Man: another part of the proposal was to limit the assignment for music to 25 years, after that the protection would be up for re-negotiation. Ironic by Alanis Morrissette was one of the top songs in 1995. With the proposed rules, the contract would have expired this year. Except that song is hardly forgotten, rather it plays often on radio stations all over, so the commercial interest remains. What happens if the contract parties cannot agree on new terms? Funny you would ask, in that case it is possible that a minister of the government would decide. Yes, you heard me. Here comes the milk-man: in the 1960s in Sweden, milk farmers did not set the price of their milk, instead, in its infinite wisdom, the government decided the price of a milk cartoon. Sweden moved on from that model. South Africa thought to bring it back.

Small wonder the creative community in South Africa pushed back. The only exception was the TV soap actors who were hoping for better compensation. Oh… and the global internet companies too. I guess they wanted free content.

What was that about Sugar-Man? Funny you would ask. Sixto Rodriguez was an American folk music artist with modest success. His songs were big hits in South Africa in the 1970s, but Rodriguez only found out in the late 1990s that he was famous and started touring. Sugar Man was his biggest hit. This story inspired the documentary Searching for Sugar Man which won an Oscar in 2013. The director Malik Bendjelloul (sadly passed in 2014) is Swedish so the spotlight was shared between the US, South-Africa and Sweden. Does anyone need a better case for the need of globally connected copyright?

Now South Africa has given itself the chance to make a good copyright reform.

South African copyright law faces reform, albeit with some delay as president Ramaphosa has sent two bills back to the National Assembly for reconsideration. There are many sides to this reform, one central issue is the concept of “fair use”. The theory is that there should be exceptions to copyright for things that are too small to negotiate licenses over, for example your favourite song playing to your holiday videos. Sounds good right? And “fair use” has a nice tone to it, who could be anti-fair? This points to some of the core concepts of intellectual property rights.

Big tech and pirates have lobbied to get the fair use-rule into South African copyright law, with push back from the creative community and the publishing sector in particular. Why is this so important to Big Tech? Who cares about holiday videos?

Imagine a video-sharing platform where users can upload any video they like, no charge, no delay. Convenient for users, free content for the platform, lots to choose from for the viewers. But what if users were to upload other people’s content? TV-shows, movies, music? Things that cost money to access elsewhere? Big fight follows. “Don’t break the internet”, says platform. Those who made and funded the content feel they’re being robbed. Platform makes lots of money. Sound familiar?

With “fair use” distribution of other people’s content, becomes the problem of the owner of that content. Not the problem for those who distribute it or provide the means for distribution. With licenses, it’s the other way around: ask first, distribute later. Rather than reply to requests, creators must police platforms to find their own works and humbly ask to have it removed (in many cases only to see it pop back up soon after). Fair use turns the tables on the creators.

But perhaps that’s just what some countries need to “catch up”? What if some copyright laws are too strict in order for local businesses to be competitive? Could be. Except the main obstacle to competing as a digital business may not be copyright but the gatekeepers who can dictate the terms for market access and pick the winners. And for the local creative businesses, fair use may take away from their opportunity to be a business at all.

Intellectual property is not the enemy of economic development, but the driver. Consider this case, which is from Ethiopia, not South Africa, and about trademarks, not copyright, but the point remains:

Coffee growers had difficulties getting a fair share of the market price for their product. Ethiopia’s government made an experiment, registering trademarks for some of the regions where the beans were grown. Despite pushback from café “platform” Starbucks, Ethiopia successfully established the trademarks and then licensed them to the growers. With this stamp of approval, marketing tool and quality mark, the growers more than tripled the revenue from the harvest. Same coffee, three times the value. Poor farmers win, café platform has a small cost increase but can in turn use the trademarks in their marketing. What would fair use have looked like in this context?

In the case of South Africa, it may not be coffee beans but rich culture heritage and creative works that are in focus of the current debate. However, the South African law-makers must figure out which strategy works best to increase the value and how it should be distributed.

Youtube does not like to block users or filter content, except when it helps their business.

Youtube CEO Susanne Wojcicki wrote this on her blog:

/…/it threatens to block users in the EU from viewing content that is already live on the channels of creators everywhere. This includes YouTube’s incredible video library of educational content, such as language classes, physics tutorials and other how-to’s.

This was in the context of the copyright reform. But she might just as well have been writing about Youtube’s own negotiation strategies. Yesterday, Youtube threatened to remove all Danish music after composer society KODA has refused to accept a new contract that would cut almost 70% of compensation. This should come as no surprise, the monopolist’s ultimatum is straight from the Google playbook, successfully applied to news before. Perhaps the double standards should also not come as a surprise. Except we don’t have to buy it, do we?

Fun fact: Remember MTV? Yeah, that’s right: the 80’s music television sensation which made the music video a core part of any artist’s marketing. Loved by fans (I spent hours everyday!). Hard to imagine today’s Youtube had MTV not come before. An overwhelming majority of the most popular videos on Youtube are music videos.

What about MTV? Arguably great visibility and marketing for artists and labels, but MTV paid royalties for the music videos it aired. Yes, they also fought about it. But MTV paid artists. Maybe not such a bad idea for Youtube to consider?