My Own Pirate Radio

Researcher Elizabeth Van Couvering recently published research results on how search engine employees think and talk about their work.

In the face of rising controversy about search engine results—that they are too restrictive, too comprehensive, lacking in certain areas, over-represented in others—this article presents the results of in-depth interviews with search engine producers, examining their conceptions of search engine quality and the implications of those conceptions.

She interviewed employees of Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask Jeeves, AOL, Excite, Lycos, Infoseek, and WebCrawler, and her report is remarkable in terms of the insider verbatim quotes. (The search industry is notoriously secretive, so getting people to reveal their inner thoughts about it is challenging.) Her analysis reveals that search industry insiders consistently portray themselves as fighting a war, that they justify much of their work in scientific terms — even when trying to deal with unquantifiable issues like public good — and that they understand in a deep way how their business is driven by profit motives.

Her work is on target. And not just for search; her observations apply to every technical group I’ve been part of or collaborated with, both within and outside of Microsoft. We all used similar language “schemas”. We talked about marketplace war, about science for science’s sake. We often shrouded ideology — “censorship is inherently bad” — in technical terminology — “I suppose the algorithm decided to demote that result because its relevance dropped during our last crawl. We don’t decide; the algorithm decides.”. Or, “Sorry, we can’t implement that feature, the current architecture doesn’t allow it and it would take way too long.” Frankly, it was often easier to fight such technical arguments than to fight the underlying ideological battles, because the latter approach generally ended in stalemate. So technical language became a tool for keeping non-techies from influencing product design, and it shielded teams from struggling with uncomfortable thoughts like, “Does any of my work have a negative impact on society?”. I believe this shielding pattern reoccurs broadly in many science and technology fields.

Elizabeth’s methodology — analyzing the actual words people speak — reminds me of ‘The Four Horsemen’: Why Marriages Fail, a radio story that aired on NPR in 2005. It’s an interview with a researcher who talks to couples about their relationships, then analyzes their word choice and emotional tone to predict whether they will eventually divorce or not. Apparently there are four strong predictors of divorce: criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. And words that convey contempt for a partner are the strongest predictors of all.

The NPR piece is designed for a mass audience. Elizabeth’s piece is written for an academic audience. I recommend both.

A few days ago I mentioned Arizona trying to stop Zillow from providing zestimates within their state.

Here’s an update from John Cook’s venture blog:

UPDATE 4/24/07: The bill, including the amendment in support of Zillow, was defeated today by a vote of 32-22 in the Arizona House of Representatives. A spokesman for the Arizona house said that the bill was defeated because it dealt with increasing fees, though he said it was likely that sponsors would re-introduce the legislation along with the amendment related to Zillow.

By the way, John Cook is worth reading if you’re into tracking US ventures, especially on the west coast. He works for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and blogs regularly on entrepreneurial happenings.

Arizona is trying to stop Zillow from providing “zestimates” — their algorithm-based home valuation estimates — on the grounds that Zillow isn’t a licensed appraiser in the state.

That’s just plain silly. Zillow is, so far at least, a benevolent information provider, not a company people need to be protected from. And its estimates are just that: estimates. They should be taken with a grain of salt, just like all other analysis that tries to predict market behavior.

Thomas Purves points out how pitiful Canada’s mobile data access is. The rates are just pathetic.

Apparently his post struck a nerve.

If this was the EU, we’d regulate our way to cheaper service. The EU looks set to pass legislation this summer capping mobile roaming rates, for instance. I’m not a fan of regulating prices — that’s what markets are for, after all — but in this case you have to wonder whether anything but regulation will improve things for consumers. The market isn’t working.

The Globe and Mail published a story this morning on the Competition Bureau’s investigation into alleged anticompetitive behavior in the Canadian real estate industry.

In a court filing, Jean-Pierre Bornais, a senior competition law officer, said 90 per cent of residential resale transactions in Canada involve the MLS database. He added that information already obtained by the bureau from industry participants indicates that the changes enacted by CREA “have restricted, and will further restrict, access to the MLS database, and have prevented and limited and will further prevent and limit, the entry and expansion of potential competitors.” The inquiry will determine whether CREA “has engaged in, or is engaging in, a practice of anti-competitive acts,” he said.
…
At CREA’s annual meeting this weekend in Ottawa, delegates approved a series of proposals that tighten listing rules and prevent homes from being put on MLS without follow up by the agent. Mr. Linney said the changes will go into effect despite the bureau inquiry.
…
Last November, one of Canada’s largest online realty services, Toronto-based Realtysellers Ltd., shut down “pending a resolution of the Multiple Listing Service issues.”

Read the full Globe story here. Read the post I wrote last week here.

I just finished reading “Miles Lives per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction”. It’s an interesting book by Terry Tamminen, who is a special advisor on environmental issues to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the book he tries to tally up the fully burdened cost of oil on society, including externalities like health costs and “defense” spending that aren’t a part of the price tag we see at the gas pump. It’s pretty data heavy, which I find appealing. That said, as in the Big Tobacco wars, it’s difficult to conclusively tie things like health problems directly to oil, except in the most glaringly obvious cases (e.g. Exxon Valdez cleanup, or pollution in Nigeria’s Delta region). While most of the book is grim, in the last few chapters he does offer some sunshine in the form of concrete suggestions on what you can do to reduce your usage of oil products.

It’s worth a read.

Updated 2007/03/24: corrected title of the book. Thanks Terry. (How embarrassing; to be caught in a typo by the book’s own author.)

I’m interested in the general theme of competition and consumer advocacy, especially as it relates to Canada and the US. Having lived in both countries I find it frustrating that Canada generally lags behind the US on this point. For example, the US rolled out its National do-not-call registry in June 2003. Canada still doesn’t have one, and its looking like 2008 before we do. Or consider mobile phone number portability, which the US initiated in 2003. Canada finally rolled out MNP just a few days ago, to the sound of… well, nothing, from the mobile phone giants. They must be hoping nobody will notice.

So it was with pleasant surprise today that I read Competition Bureau officers are “talking and meeting with limited-service brokers in the United States to gauge the potential effects of real estate restrictions in Canada”. (Read the article today if you’re interested… it goes behind a subscription wall after 24 hours.) The US DOJ and FTC have been looking into anti-competitive real estate policy and legislation driven by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and several US states for the last year or so. It’s nice to see Canada doing a fast-follow on this one.

What’s the DOJ all fussed about? Their main bone of contention is so-called “minimum service” laws, which make it illegal for real estate professionals to provide limited service offerings (which cost less) to their clients. For instance, advertising a home for sale on the MLS and allowing the customer to handle the rest of the transaction is now against the law in 10 US states. The FTC and DOJ have voiced concern about this, advising the states that such rules will probably be deemed anticompetitive. The DOJ has also filed a lawsuit against NAR objecting to “overly restrictive” online property listings policies. The battle has been joined.

Why should Canadians care? Well, it turns out that CREA, NAR’s Canadian equivalent, has been trying to impose similar rules on its member MLS organizations for the last half a year or so. The Inman article cites several Canadian discount real estate companies that are struggling in the face of CREA rules, including Realtysellers, co-founded by Stephen Moranis, ironically a former president of the Toronto Real Estate Board and director of CREA. Realtysellers announced in November 2006 that it was suspending operations pending resolution of the CREA issues.

CREA recently backed off on passing formal regulations, but it’s taking another stab at it next week, this time with its policies recast as “interpretations” of existing CREA rules. The interpretations document is up for vote at CREA’s general meeting on March 24. In a nutshell, it implies that Realtors (CREA members and trademark users) cannot provide limited service offerings, cannot “merely list” properties on the MLS, and must remain middlemen at all times in real estate transactions … whether their clients want the help or not. Furthermore, property sellers’ name and contact information cannot appear on the MLS.ca website. You can see the proposed interpretations on the Real Estate Marketing web site.

Consumer choice is good. CREA should acknowledge that and change its tune, before the Competition Bureau forces it to do so.