Comments on: Discussion: is Obama too close to Google? http://rc3.org/2009/01/16/discussion-is-obama-too-close-to-google/ Strong opinions weakly held Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:59:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: David Adams http://rc3.org/2009/01/16/discussion-is-obama-too-close-to-google/comment-page-1/#comment-4297 David Adams Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:27:34 +0000 http://rc3.org/?p=8912#comment-4297 <p>Based on what I read about the "negotiations", it was more about ensuring that YouTube's terms of use were compatible with official government sharing and towards more open access to the content, ie the downloadable format.</p> <p>I'm sure that feature has been on Google's list for a while, but it appears maybe that the Obama administration gave them the final push. It's also worth noting that the transition team has posted their videos on multiple streaming sites (the latest is on YouTube, Vimeo, and MySpace--I'd seen some on Yahoo and MSN, not sure if that's still going on).</p> <p>You're right that it's critical that Google be pressured to stay as open as possible, but it seems like Obama's team is doing the right thing here.</p> <p>On the anti-trust question, while it does seem crazy that Google has such a big share of search (though fully deserved in you ask me), in the realm of stickier services like calendaring, webmail, IM, etc, they really aren't one of the big players.</p> Based on what I read about the “negotiations”, it was more about ensuring that YouTube’s terms of use were compatible with official government sharing and towards more open access to the content, ie the downloadable format.

I’m sure that feature has been on Google’s list for a while, but it appears maybe that the Obama administration gave them the final push. It’s also worth noting that the transition team has posted their videos on multiple streaming sites (the latest is on YouTube, Vimeo, and MySpace–I’d seen some on Yahoo and MSN, not sure if that’s still going on).

You’re right that it’s critical that Google be pressured to stay as open as possible, but it seems like Obama’s team is doing the right thing here.

On the anti-trust question, while it does seem crazy that Google has such a big share of search (though fully deserved in you ask me), in the realm of stickier services like calendaring, webmail, IM, etc, they really aren’t one of the big players.

]]>