Proprietarianism

I have been flooded lately with anti-Google outrage.  As I’m sure some of you remember from one of my last couple of posts, I am spending a lot of time on Google+, a fast-paced and in my humble opinion superior social media platform to Facebook.

The situation is like this:  Google has decided that Google+ will play host to individuals who choose to use their real legal names.  They strictly enforce their “no pseudonym” policy.  This has resulted in one of my dear friends having an account he has had for many months banned, without warning.  The account did, indeed, bear a pseudonym and was certainly in violation of the pseudonym policy.  The result is a bunch of things flying around about how Google is “the machine,” that VPs of Google are going to be targeted for a coordinated trolling campaign, and much declaration that people should be allowed use pseudonyms on the Google+ platform.  There is, apparently, a general sense of entitlement present here…  that individuals have a right to use Google’s resources as they (the individuals) see fit, in spite of the wishes of Google (the owner of said resources).  I’m going to elucidate why I disagree with these notions and the actions being taken against Google currently.

First of all, I must look at this position as a proprietarian, a person who accepts, even takes for granted, that a man is entitled to the use of his body and therefore the fruits of his labor or some exchange for them, the only exception to which being if he should offer those fruits as gifts of his own free will.

Let’s analyze the situation as it exists from the perspective of various property owners.   First, we have the users.  These users own the fruits of their labor, their works, their bodies, their computers, their personal in-home networks.  All of these things they are using and exchanging voluntarily with other individuals, and with the company Google, for whatever reason they have decided to.  Secondly, there is Google.  Google is a group of individuals who have pooled their material and immaterial resources to purchase and maintain physical servers and networks and provide services, often as gifts, to other individuals.  Those paid and gifted services come with certain stipulations, as is the right of an owner to place upon the use of his property.  I demand that you take your shoes off when you enter my home.  If that demand is unreasonable, you don’t enter my home.  If the demand is acceptable you comply and enter.  Period.  If I find you in my home with shoes on, I will forcibly remove you, and not many people would complain about whether or not that was morally acceptable or “fair.”

I worked for a company once that had a very strict policy on weapons (guns).  It was a zero-tolerance, pink slip offense.  I carried a gun to my desk every day I worked there.  I did so knowing full-well what would happen if I was caught.  My employer owns the property, it is my employer’s rightful claim to that property that gives him the ability to create policies which are physically enforceable, and I violated that policy every day.  It was a huge risk, albeit a calculated one.

In the same way, I have chosen to use a pseudonym on G+.  I know that Google has policies in place that prohibit that behavior, and I know that if caught, I will lose my account and everything associated with it.  This is not something I’m unaware of.  I take on that risk knowingly, and willingly. Should my account be suspended, I will not rage at Google, just like I would not rage at the casino when I lost all my money to the house.  I chose to take a gamble and I lost.  I will accept that responsibility, myself, as an adult.  If it were really that much of an issue, I would simply refuse to use Google’s services until such time as their policies more accurately reflected my own interests and desires.

Now, all that said, I’m also not a fan of Libel/Slander laws.  Libel and slander insist that on some level individuals own the very thoughts in other people’s heads, in the form of opinions and “reputation.”  The truth of the matter is that a proprietarian philosophy would make it pretty clear that the only person who owns the thoughts in your head and even the words that come out of your mouth is you, and you are quite right (morally speaking) to do with them as you please.  For this reason, I do not question the morality of seeking to harm Google’s reputation as a result of questionable policies, such as the pseudonym policy.  This is a perfectly valid course of action which should bear with it no legal or monetary consequence.

I will state, however, that personally, I do not find myself so bothered.  The Google Plus pseudonym policy is not one I find myself horribly concerned with.  It certainly doesn’t violate any “rights” I may possess.  Should my account be suspended, I will likely not be very concerned, and I am already (to some extent) distancing myself from those who believe that Google has somehow caused them “damage” by enforcing their (Google’s) pseudonym policy on their own property (i.e. their sites and servers).  I can’t agree with that course of action.  There’s something about it that I find very troublesome but for now, I’m not able to put my finger on it…  Perhaps in another post.

Thanks for listening to me rant.

LP

For some reason, I have been asked a question that I really want to answer…..  And as such, I think I might be spending some time here.  :)  Bear with me folks…  Bear with me.

LP