peterm@seattleu.edu (06/29/91)
From Langdon Winner, "A Victory for Computer Populism," in "The Culture
of Technology," TECHNOLOGY REVIEW, May/June 1991, p. 66:
What will become of human freedom in a thoroughly computerized world?...
An astonishing chapter in this ongoing controversy surfaced earlier this
year, when the computer as social menace tangled with computer democracy.
The confrontation arose as Lotus Development Corp. prepared to release a
potent piece of software called Lotus MarketPlace: Households....
Information once located in a few highly centralized databases would now
be scattered throughout the land in an inexpensive program for personal
computers....
Company officials scuttled the program rather than face citizens' ire.
This intense opposition sprang in part from inquiries by...(CPSR)....
Consumer groups and professional associations began studying MarketPlace
and its disturbing features....
When CPSR looked into the matter,...they made a fascinating discovery. To
delete yourself from the database, you had to supply Lotus with your
Social Security number. That suggested that information in the Equifax
database was keyed to Social Security numbers. Hence, the nightmare
envisioned by Sen. Sam Ervin years ago--that the Social Security number
would become a universal identifier--was about to be realized.
Meanwhile, news of the product became a hot topic on the computer
networks.... Computer conferences and electronic mailboxes buzzed with
questions. Network activists called for direct action....
As the dust settled, a Lotus press release lamented that there had been
public "misunderstanding of the product." Not true. Critics fully
understood the technology, business contexts, and social issues of
MarketPlace and pointed out specific objectionable aspects of the
program.
This firestorm of computer populism was neither planned nor centrally
orchestrated. It arose spontaneously within the webs of computerized
communication.... While the issue also spread by word of mouth and in
newspaper stories, the ability of computer networks to amplify public
response clearly played an important role.
In this battle of Liberating Network versus Menacing Database, the
outcome is loud and clear. People welcome computers to the extent that
they expand their ability to exchange information and ideas. They despise
systems that keep track of each person's every move.
The troubles unearthed during the MarketPlace furor will not vanish with
the product's ignominious death.... Sooner or later we are bound to see
Big Brother1-2-3 reborn. When that happens, citizens of the network will
have to rise up again, fighting back with all the ingenuity and vigilance
they showed this time around.
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