Seven Oaks Magazine.

In this cynical, irony-laced digital age, it often behoves us to hark back to a more innocent time — a time of starry-eyed optimism, a time of excited belief in a democratic new medium set to burst asunder the tight chains of Orwellian corporate communication. It behoves us, in fact, to hark back to an earlier point in this very same digital age, when everyone from business section pundits to guerrilla journalists was touting the inherent populism of the Internet, and the boundless possibilities for mental emancipation that it offered up to anyone who could afford a computer.

For years now, smarmy Gen-Xers and “with it” boomers have smirked at the obsolescence which they themselves had thrust upon the antiquated theories of media control put forward by the Edward S. Hermans and Noam Chomskys of this world. Thanks to the information superhighway, the New York Times and the National Post were now but voices like any other in a classless chorus of informational exchange — the Web filled up with alternative sources such as Indymedia.org, Rabble.ca, Zmag.org (as well as some johnny-come-lately’s named for Métis battles against the Hudson’s Bay Company. Ahem). But of course, this very edition of Seven Oaks is a case in point: An Internet publication whose lead feature explores the political potential of the “blogging” phenomenon. The libertarianism of the Web has become self-referential.

In a powerful corrective to this Periclean enthusiasm, Internet giant Google — known for their powerful search engine and colourful (and often holiday-themed) homepage — announced that they will be wading into the waters of free, web-based email service provision, offering far more storage space than their competitors at Microsoft-owned Hotmail or Yahoo. And, in a frightening twist on what ought to have been nothing more than a quick press release (and an escape from the restrictively miniature Hotmail inbox), the company has announced that it will be scanning its client’s correspondences in order to display relevant advertising. One more time: Google will be reading your e-mail, searching for information relevant to the business interests of its advertising clients. For laughs, I googled the word “Orwellian.” Hit “I’m feeling lucky” and you are transported to the satirical page of the Students for an Orwellian Society, whose motto is: “Because 2004 is 20 years too late.” While delivering the news about Google’s announcement in his monologue, French-Canadian solidarity activist and late-night talk show host Conan O’Brien joked that the company might use the opportunity to inform the public that 1984 was “available on Amazon.com.”

It remains to be seen whether the public will sacrifice their privacy in the quest for more storage space. Regardless, the Google news should serve to temper some of the unguarded optimism regarding the Spartacus-like qualities of the Internet to free the (wired) downtrodden. It should give us all pause as a reminder that — although there is some truth to the widely held belief that the Internet is the new global commons — it remains an area in which the laws of private property, in all their perversity, retain hegemony. After all, “I’m feeling lucky” is hardly an inspiring political motto with which to tackle the challenges of the twentieth-first century.