Behind the Search Box: the Political Economy of a Global Internet Industry
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BEHIND THE SEARCH BOX: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF A GLOBAL INTERNET INDUSTRY BY SHINJOUNG YEO DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Library and Information Science in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Dan Schiller, Chair Professor Linda Smith Professor Christian Sandvig, University of Michigan Professor Fred Turner, Stanford University Abstract With the rapid proliferation of the Web, the search engine constituted an increasingly vital tool in everyday life, and offered technical capabilities that might have lent themselves under different circumstances to a sweeping democratization of information provision and access. Instead the search function was transformed into the most profitable large-scale global information industry. This dissertation examines the evolution of search engine technologies within the context of the commercialization and commodification of the Internet. Grounded in critical political economy, the research details how capital has progressively shifted information search activities further into the market, transforming them into sites of profit-making and poles of capitalist growth. It applies historical and political economic analysis by resorting to an extensive array of sources including trade journals, government documents, industry reports, and financial and business newspapers. The first chapter situates the development of the search engine within the wider political economy of the Internet industry. The second shows how the technology of search was reorganized to enable profitable accumulation. The third and fourth chapters focus on another primary concern of political economy: the labor structures and labor processes that typify this emergent industry. These pivot around familiar compulsions: profit-maximization and management control. The search industry is famous for the almost incredible perks it affords to a select group of highly paid, highly skilled engineers and managers. However, the same industry also relies not only a large number of low-wage workers but also an unprecedented mass of unwaged labor. Google and other search engines also have found means of re-constructing the practices of a seemingly bygone industrial era of labor control: corporate paternalism and ii scientific management. Today, the search engine industry sits at the “magnetic north pole” of economic growth – the Internet. This vital function of search is controlled disproportionately by US digital capital, mainly Google. US dominance in search seems to carry forward the existing, deeply unbalanced, international information order; however, this US-led industry actually faces jarring oppositions within a changing and conflicted global political economy. Chapter Five investigates two of the most important and contested zones: China, whose economic growth has been unsurpassed throughout the entire period spanned by this study of the search engine’s development, and which has nurtured a highly successful domestic Internet industry, including a search engine company, Baidu; and Europe, US’s long-time ally, where units of capital both European and non-European are struggling with one another. By situating search within these contexts, this chapter sheds light on the ongoing reconfiguration of international information services, and on the geopolitical-economic conflicts that are altering the dynamics of information-intensive transnational capitalism. There is a well-developed critical scholarship in political economy that foregrounds the role of information in contemporary capitalist development. This dissertation contributes to and expands this research by looking at search to uncover the capital logics that undergird and shape contemporary information provision. iii To my parents and James iv Acknowledgements My dissertation is far from my individual struggle to answer scholarly inquiries; rather it is the fruit of a collective endeavor. I cannot thank Professor Dan Schiller enough as he has not only been my intellectual mentor, but taught me scholarly integrity, commitment, humility, and intellectual confidence. He is my teacher, friend, and colleague. I would like to thank my committee members Professor Linda Smith who never hesitated to give me support and unconditional care; Professor Fred Turner who always offered his time and advice with generosity and Professor Christian Sandvig whose perspectives and input were extremely valuable in shaping my research. Thanks also to my San Diego comrades Anita Schiller, Mary Lou Locke, and Jim Jacobs with whom I passionately debated issues surrounding libraries, information, and culture. I deeply thank my friend Ellen Riordan who gave me constant support and came all the way from Florida for my dissertation defense, and Chris Darpa and Lucy Moynihan who always welcomed me into their house and whose friendship comforted me. I’m grateful to Professor Dorothy Kidd who showed me what real academic care for social justice looks like, Kyoko Sato who made me laugh and kept me company deep into the night, and my writing group members Morgan Ames, Lilly Irani, and Daniela Rosner who provided moral support and a community off of which to bounce ideas. I’m thankful to Fred and Nancy Jacobs who quietly supported me with love. Many thanks to my parents, who trusted me and allowed me to take my life to an unknown journey to a foreign land. My dissertation would not be finished without James Jacobs who is my friend, partner, and comrade. I tested his patience and love over and over during my writing, but he never failed. James, this is your work. Thank you. v Table of Contents Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 1 Situating Search ………………………………………………………………………………... 20 Chapter 2 Monetizing User Traffic: The Development of Search Advertising Systems …………………. 66 Chapter 3 Laboring behind the Search Engine …………………………………………………………....105 Chapter 4 Digital Welfare Capitalism …………………………………………………………………….143 Chapter 5 Market Dynamics and Geopolitics: A Search for Stability …………………………………....185 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………..255 Bibliography [Books and Peer-Reviewed Journals] …………………………………………...265 vi Introduction “New” Digital Economy In announcing that 2.5 million jobs were lost to the global economic crisis in 2008, President Obama vowed to renew the “information highway” in order to create jobs and strengthen America’s “competitiveness” in the world.1 This was followed by his visit to Silicon Valley – the epicenter of the “new” economy – to meet with high tech industry CEOs including the late Steve Jobs from Apple, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Yahoo’s Carol Bartz, Cisco Systems’ John Chambers, Twitter’s Dick Costolo, and Netflix’s Reed Hastings.2 Obama’s visit to Silicon Valley was not merely to express his gratitude toward the tech giants which were the largest of his presidential campaign contributors, but was also to discuss the “partnership” between the public and private sectors to reboot the process of capital accumulation3 through the Internet sector in order to shore up the depressed capitalist economic system. The search engine industry lies at the center of this larger effort. The Internet sector is a strategic growth industry, which has been refueled by fresh capital to jolt the capitalist economy. In the midst of one of the worst global economic crises, when millions of people were losing jobs, homes, pensions, and social welfare rights around the world, the Obama Administration – as part of its stimulus 1 David Rochelson, “President-elect Barack Obama lays out key parts of Economic Recovery Plan,” The Office of the President-Elect, December 6, 2008, http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/the_key_parts_of_the_jobs_plan/. 2 Lance Whitney, “Obama dines with Jobs, Zuckerberg, other tech honchos,” CNET, February 18, 2011, http://www.cnet.com/news/obama-dines-with-jobs-zuckerberg-other-tech-honchos/. 3 Marxist theory defines accumulation as the process of converting surplus value into production in order to generate more surplus. 1 package in 2009 – funneled billions of dollars to incorporate and expand new Internet- based technologies into medicine, education, energy, transportation, federal IT infrastructure, and manufacturing industries in order to extend and open up vast new information businesses for capital with the promise of economic recovery, prosperity, creation of quality jobs, transparency, and a more democratic society.4 Under the stimulus, the administration orchestrated a series of “public and private” initiatives to enlarge the Internet sector – including a project called Digital Promise backed by the Department of Education, academia and the tech industry to create “smart demand” to move the education system further toward being an appendage of the market;5 electronic medical records being mandated by the federal government to open up a new billion dollar health IT market;6 promoting a smart grid by the Department of Energy for trade and investment around the world; and, all in the name of transparency, the White House pushed its open data policy, requiring government agencies to release government data and in effect turning over valuable government data like weather, climate, health, and geographic data collected at tax payer expense to the information market. The US has been aggressively reorienting its domestic economy to aid digital capital