Info/Law

John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Berkman Center, has an engaging and illuminating post about the StopBadware project’s warning concerning AOL downloads (which I discussed here). It’s worth reading the whole post, which explores how, as his title says, “good companies sometimes release bad applications.” He goes through his own frustrating experience testing out the AOL software. Then he notes that, even if AOL fixed some of the most serious problems they documented, related to failure to disclose programs and difficulty uninstalling them, another problem would remain:

Would it then add up to Badware, if all of these programs were disclosed and the user could go through and take them all off? Nah. But still pretty annoying? You bet. And is the average user likely to go all the way through this process of informing themselves and then uninstalling all these programs, loads of reboots, etc.? Honestly, I don’t think so. But let’s be clear: this is not just an AOL problem — it’s instead an industry issue, one related to bundling of applications. Do users really want this level of simplicity? Maybe. But maybe users deserve more credit: maybe users really do want to take the easy route OR to be able to install a subset of those applications. Maybe it’s possible within AOL 9.0, but I sure couldn’t find it.

I suspect John is just being nice by suggesting that it might be possible within AOL 9.0 for users to control what happens to their machines. It isn’t. And giving the option for either the “easy” defaults or a customized user-driven experience is not widespread.

More generally, there seems to be a pendulum swing back toward more “bossy” computer technology — not unlike the walled AOL garden John remembers from circa 1998. (Indeed, as David Weinberger points out, Windows XP itself may qualify as “Badware” under the same rationale as AOL 9.0). Note, however, that this model eventually flopped — once computer users realized they didn’t need AOL to hold their hand, and that there was a lot of great stuff out there on the wild and untamed web, they left in droves.

I would take the point further still: it isn’t just applications. I recently hooked up a Linksys Wi-Fi router in our new home, and I was infuriated by the supposedly helpful “wizard” that did not explain options it presented and did not allow me to vary in any way the fixed installation process it prescribed. The problem even extends beyond computers: all of us have stories about maddening telephone encounters with the voice-driven automated “help” lines that expect all consumer inquries to follow predictable paths and become flummoxed when your issue is not included in their pre-fab lists. (My most maddening recent incident happened when my electricity went off during a 102-degree heat wave here in St. Paul. The polite but incompetent robot from Xcel Energy was unable to figure out where I lived. It took quite some effort to get through to a human being.)

This is a large part of what Jonathan Zittrain warns of in his “Generative Internet” theory (see also here). The increasing “appliancization” of technology is a threat to the capacity for unpredicatable innovation that has made the internet so valuable and significant. It is also, as Palfrey’s experiences with AOL and many other examples demonstrate, frustrating and alienating for many computer users. Designers who equate “user-friendly” with “paternalistic and bossy” may find that users flee. And a parallel movement toward more user-centric design principles will continue to provide alternatives. As John concludes:

Users have a lot to say, and some of it might help get to innovation, if the conversation is kept open. Put another way, instead of trying to make it more and more simple but also more and more closed, could AOL and others similarly situated instead make its application more “hackable”?

Filed under: Berkman, Digital Media, ISP, Intermediaries, Security, Software, badware