Google Accused of Bio-piracy

Simon Phillips writes "ZDNet is reporting that Google has been accused of being the 'biggest threat to genetic privacy' this year for its plan to create a searchable database of genetic information. From the article: 'Google was presented with an award as part of the Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy in Curitiba, Brazil, this week. The organisers allege that Google's collaboration with genomic research institute J. Craig Venter to create a searchable online database of all the genes on the planet is a clear example of biopiracy.'"

Comments

Stupid.

[tpgp]

From the about the award pages:

Biopiracy refers to the monopolization of genetic resources such as seeds and genes taken from the peoples or farming communities that have nurtured those resources. It also refers to the theft of traditional knowledge from those cultures.

And the page explaining why Google was nominated.

Nonetheless a recent internal video released from the Googleplex shows that the company are still very actively pursuing the goal of putting genomic information online for free.

So. Google is monopolizing genetic resources by putting genetic information online for free?

There are much better things to go after google for if you don't like them (*cough*censorhip*in*China*France*Germany*US*Unwar rented*Patents*cough) and far better companies to go after for biopiracy (What a stupid term).

The monopolization of genetic information is a serious issue - people are trying to do stupid things - like attempting to apply copy protection measures (both physical and legal) to life. Life attempts to copy itself & tradional copyright / patent laws should not apply.

Unfortunately, these awards look like shameless self-promotion rather then a serious attempt to tackle the problem.

Bio-piracy?

[Uber Banker]

I can understand the meaning of pirate as in someone who sails the seas and acts in piracy - stealing others' belongs by force.

I recognise the notion of piracy as in copying material which has been copyrighted, conducted by a 'pirate'. But I prefer the term copyright infringement.

But what the heck is 'Bio-piracy'? Because privacy and piracy sound vaguely familiar isn't reason enough, IMHO. Naming the awards 'the Captain Hook awards' seems even more facetious.

From TFA, "Google, in cooperation with Craig Venter, are developing plans to make all of our genomes Googlable to facilitate the brave new world of private genetically-tailored medicines" does not equal piracy, IMHO.

And to tackle their argument, they have not outlined why genetically tailored medicines are bad, not why holding them in private hands is wrong. And private means exactly what? The copyright to GNU/Linux is held in private hands. And Google giving public access to work done by the human genome sequence project seems a lot better than letting all research in the hands of a very small amount of drug companies, those that are most interested in profiting from keeping information 'secret'.

correct me if i'm wrong

[gEvil (beta)]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you are someone with the resources to even do anything with this type of information, you will most likely be able to obtain it through sources other than Google.

Yup. Sounds to me...

[schon]

Google is monopolizing genetic resources by putting genetic information online for free?

Sounds to me like these guys are a bunch of kooks who are attacking any large company who uses the words "genetic" and "database" in the same sentence.

Google is one of the biggest, so they automatically attack.

I don't understand

[wetfeetl33t]

Why is it that when a company makes information private, they are considered greedy and secretive, but when a company makes information freely accessible over the internet, they are considered pirates?

Riiiight, so...

[AEther141]

Making data publicly available at no charge is evil and advancing the privatisation of genetic data. That makes sense. Torvalds, Cox and Stallman must be evil for all that Free software. The Gutenberg Project must be pure evil for making all that literature publicly available - who knows what Evil Corporations(TM) might do with that information? Seems to me that this 'bio-piracy' malarkey is a thinly veiled primitivist agenda.

RE: need a new keyboard... again.

[fshalor]

This made me spit out my coffee... Arrrrg!

There's a balance between communication and proliferation. There really is.

If a person is being tested for a degree on material, they shouldn't have access to the answers. But if a person is working in the field, they *should*. And if a person is curious, they probably should too.

This is just taking it too far. There may be justifiable reasons why evil corperation X in country Z shouldn't have access to information Gamma, but what real difference will it make if they can google for it. There's a much greater chance of them screwing something up if they're evil than getting something right.

Weight that against the 1000's of corperations/individuals/research groups also looking at information Gamma and doing something promising, and google is, on average, doing a good service.

I have to google for facts that make our research institute run literally daily. Usually its simple stuff like " what the hell is bentonite and how much can we put in this beaker without breaking something." or "what the heck is this photoflo stuff. It works great for this demonstration experiment, but we can't find the bottle..." a short google later, and we have a home brew wetting agent made, in the tank, and making the flow over a glass edge laminar just as we wanted.

Biopiracy? Please: Communication is a *vital* part of the scientific method. Shure, 1/1000 it might bite someone in the ass. But without modern communication pathways, we wouldn't have all these cool toys or long lives in which to buy more toys.