Since it’s introduction earlier this week, google chrome has had lots of attention in the media. Praises here and there, but mostly critiques were heard with ‘the privacy issue’ being the most talked about ‘problem’. Not a really new problem, that is…
Internet is the most highly controlled environment there is while at the same time a very open and free space. This weird split between control and lack of it can be best described in a debate between two scholars; Danah Boyd and Fred Scharmen. Danah Boyd holding a PhD at Berkeley and doing research on socio-networking sites and youth culture, writes in her article “Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace” that MySpace is the environment where the ‘American youth’ (age 14-24) simply ‘hangs out’ and get’s socialized into peer groups.19 The reason these kids hangout on MySpace, according to Boyd, is because this is the place to escape the control of ‘adult-culture’, which thinks hanging out is a waste of time. Lack of mobility and access to youth space where they can hang out interrupted is the main reason why youth spends its time online. In this context, Boyd sees three main classes of space: public, private and controlled.
“For adults, the home is the private sphere where they relax amidst family and
close friends. The public sphere is the world amongst strangers and people of all
statuses where one must put forward one’s best face. For most adults, work is a
controlled space where bosses dictate the norms and acceptable behavior.
Teenager’s space segmentation is slightly different. Most of their space is
controlled space. Adults with authority control the home, the school, and most
activity spaces. Teens are told where to be, what to do and how to do it. Because
teens feel a lack of control at home, many don’t see it as their private space.” [Boyd, 2006]
This, coupled with the facts that outside locations to hangout are considered dangerous by most parents, and after school activities (sports, jobs etc) also take place in a very controlled environment make the youth take their refuge to cyberspace to create their own ‘youth space’. Free from adult control, according to Boyd.
Fred Scharmen, a US student, opposes Boyd’s opinion. In his article “You must be logged in to do that! MySpace and Control” Scharmen argues that “[...] it is exactly control in the Deleuzian sense that these teenagers and other users of MySpace are submitting to”. First of all, you only have access to MySpace if you have a password, a code. Without a password you cannot work within the MySpace area; if you want to be included you have to work with the MySpace protocol. Next to that Scharmen thinks that online ‘spaces’ like MySpace are highly controlled environments not only because of the nature of online environments, (communication is only possible within the above written protocols, which ‘open’ and controlled), but he also builds his argument by looking at the Terms of Service (TOS) that MySpace has. When reading the TOS it becomes quite clear what kind of information of the users (the ‘youth’) is being harvested and in what manner MySpace has the ‘right’ to do with this valuable information as it pleases. (Not to mention the fact that all uploaded content becomes MySpace’s property!).
And again with Google’s Chrome this seems to be the issue. But as Chris Messina writes:
“[...] our fundamental notions and expectations of privacy on the web have to change or will be changed for us. Either we do without tools that augment our cognitive faculties or we embrace them, and in so doing, shim open a window on our behaviors and our habits so that computers, computing environments and web service agents can become more predictive and responsive to them, and in so doing, serve us better. So it goes.”
