The (Sub)Human Network

The New York Times has an interesting article about Cisco's roll in the Great Firewall of China + more:

Cisco, the maker of Internet routing gear, customized its technology to help China track members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week by members of the movement.

The lawsuit, which relies on internal sales materials, also said that Cisco had tried to market its equipment to the Chinese government by using inflammatory language that stemmed from the Maoist Cultural Revolution.

And that from a company which promotes itself using the label "the human network."

And how did Cisco react when the above information became public? "When evidence of the company’s activities in China became public in 2008 through a leaked PowerPoint presentation, Cisco disassociated itself from the marketing materials, stating that they were the work of a low-level employee."

That is what big brands do. The PR team steps in and says "Oops it was a rogue marketer/trader/monkey/employee who was smoking crack at work and they have now been fired. We were ignorant of our actions but we really care about people. We promise to not (get caught) doing it again!" TM

As Google pushes to make the web more corporate, it is worth taking a step back and considering what that means for "the human network."

Google likes to pretend that something is good just because it is a big brand, but many big brands have big ad budgets *precisely* because their business model contains hidden costs. For instance: bad faith insurance which takes your money as long as you pay & then disappears the minute something goes wrong.

The legal system granted large corporations more rights than human beings. Not because they are any better, but because they are more corrupt. I bet many Google engineers are disappointed to see Google following suit & taking the easy way out. Spy & personalize. And when in doubt, brand, brand, brand. ;)

With the vast potential of the web should we settle for making it as corrupt (or more corrupt) than the real world?

The following song is brought to you by the Facebook "like" spy button. ;)