Amazon.com: The Control Revolution: How The Internet is Putting Individuals in Charge and Changing the World We Know: Andrew L. Shapiro: Books

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Where do you want to go today? This slogan/mantra is the centerpiece of a Microsoft advertising campaign and the central dilemma of our times, says technorealist Andrew L. Shapiro in The Control Revolution, a warning of the potentially dismal consequences of the uninhibited personalization afforded by the Internet. By putting individuals in charge of their own information gathering, Shapiro suggests that we might find ourselves imprisoned within our increasingly narrow choices or "oversteering" into a corporate-controlled Net environment not unlike network television. His aim is to alert us to the problems and help us steer a middle course to fully realize the benefits of worldwide networking.

What will happen to encryption, copyright, and free speech in our brave new world? How can we seize the power of unrestricted choice without giving in to the temptation of ignoring diverse opinions? How will governmental and business authorities respond to these threats to their power? Shapiro addresses these questions and others forcefully and eloquently, offering prescriptions for thoughtful leaders such as limiting certain intellectual property rights to free the market for new operating systems and creating incentives for virtual "public squares" where everyone can have their 15 nanominutes of fame. Thoughtful, entertaining, and substantial, The Control Revolution is essential reading for those charged with creating the future. --Rob Lightner

From Publishers Weekly
Noting that the Internet is reshaping society and giving the individual unprecedented power, Shapiro, a Nation contributing editor, lawyer and director of the Aspen Institute Internet Policy Project, offers a sophisticated look at the Net and the ramifications of its current and potential uses. When the first graphical browsers came on the scene and made the Web accessible to anyone with a PC, optimists trumpeted the arrival of an era in which power would flow back to individuals after years of residing with corporations and institutions. Five years later, Shapiro sees that libertarian promise coming to fruition in many ways: day traders are bypassing stockbrokers; persons living under repressive regimes are using the Web to circumvent the Big Lie of state-controlled media; musicians and wordsmiths are self-publishing on the Web. Shapiro celebrates these freedoms, but his book is much more than a breathless booster's vision of digital utopia. Governments and corporations, he notes, are already striking back, and he documents some of the most egregious examples of censorship and attempts by companies to get a choke hold on Net technologies. And, most honestly, he addresses how too much digital autonomy might be harmful to civil society, in his critiques of "The Drudge Factor" (unaccountable pseudojournalism), "friction-free capitalism" (digital commerce freed from the restraints of taxation and regulation) and "push-button politics" (direct, electronic voting by citizens on matters currently decided by elected officials or appointed professionals). With scrupulous documentation and a knowledgeable but unpatronizing tone, Shapiro delivers a penetrating analysis of both the promise and peril of the digital future. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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First Sentence:
On August 19, 1991, I received a remarkable fax from a friend in Moscow. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
surf globally, kid browsers, clickwrap contracts, total filtering, market for privacy, screen bias, control revolution, commercial middlemen, local gateways,

The Control Revolution: How The Internet is Putting Individuals in Charge and Changing the World We Know (Hardcover)

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