The Captain Hook Award to Google in the category of "worst threat to genetic privacy," has attracted some strong reaction. A few people have written in Google's defense, claiming that Google isn't a biopirate and that the Coalition Against Biopiracy is wrong to name them. They argue that it isn't biopiracy because Google will not be patenting the genomic information they will be storing -- and, since anyone can access the information, its not monopolistic. They point out that this approach is actually anti-monopolistic because the genomic information would be freely available to everyone. And if genomic information is easily available, Google's defenders point out, it is more likely to facilitate the discovery of cures and new medical breakthroughs.
Here's our response:
First, the award wasn't for 'biopiracy' it was specifically for posing a 'threat to genetic privacy'. Even if Google makes all the genomic data it holds anonymous -- it is still possible to identify an individual's data by genetic fingerprinting. On Google Video, Google has a video of an internal talk on genomic databases where the speaker admits this is a big potential problem, and a troubling issue that Google is going to face in the future.
But whether or not genomic information is available for free or not is not the point - the important point is that it would facilitate access without consent. When you download a document from the internet (via Google) you have the implied consent of the person who posted it to that public space that it is now for common use - this is enough because this is only data and not much more - it is not as personal as an individual's genomic information. By contrast when you access somebody's genomic data you need to have explicit consent because this is something very personal that has an important bearing on their identity, health, right-to-privacy, personhood etc. Access to an individual's genomic information -- in the wrong hands -- opens up possibilities of discrimination in the workplace, for example. If Google makes all personal genomic data available for anyone to use it is also making that available to profit-making enterprises -- and it's not clear how they could put in place an adequate consent mechanism to do this. This data is not Google's to redistribute (and it shouldn't even be Craig Venter's). It is also misleading to think that this data is going to be freely and equally available to everyone, because only certain specialized knowledge enterprises have the ability to make use of such data, and, by and large they are private, for-profit and they won't re-distribute a penny back to the people whose genomic information they are using. Genomic information is not like software code and it's wrong to compare them -- it belongs very personally to individuals. When you use or distribute that information without explicit consent, there is a victim. The 2005 Captain Hook Award to Google is intended to raise questions and concerns about a future threat to genetic privacy. We believe these issues need public attention and should be widely debated to forestall the most dangerous and socially harmful scenarios.
The Coalition Against Biopiracy also received a few complaints about naming Craig Venter as a recipient of one of this year's Captain Hook Awards. We believe he's quite deserving. Go here for more background on Venter's 2004 global expedition to collect microbial biodiversity:
Venter is the flamboyant scientist who first grabbed headlines back in 1991. While employed at NIH, part of the US government's Human Genome Project, when he filed for US patents on thousands of gene sequences from the human brain.
Venter's global expedition to collect microbial diversity challenges national sovereignty and raises more doubts about the already problematic acce
Food for thought my friend...A concise history of patent monopoly
The rallying cry "no patents on life" has become a line in a technological and legal sandstorm. Although
the notion of intellectual monopolies can be traced back to early Greece, patents did not come into their
own until Britain's Industrial Revolution when the inventors of textile machinery demanded "protection."
Recognizing that patents would make technology accessible only to well-heeled manufacturers, smaller
enterprises protested. The response: "Don't worry. We only seek to patent the machines we invented."
In the 1920s and 30s, when rose and chrysanthemum breeders demanded intellectual property for their
flowers, they argued that it was unfair to grant patents to machine inventors but to deny equal rights to
ornamental inventors. Although some were repelled by the idea that living things could be patented, the
flower companies replied, "Don't worry. These patents protect only decorative plants - not food crops."
In the 1960s, when plant breeders called upon governments to grant them intellectual property over food
crops, they said it was unfair to recognize the minor contributions of ornamental breeders without
recognizing the contributions of the breeders of crop varieties. The companies chided their critics by
saying, "Don't be alarmed. We just want breeders' rights to protect plant varieties; we're not patenting
plants, animals or human genetic material, and we would never stop farmers from saving seed."
In 1980, the Gene Giants won patents on genetically modified microbes. A few years later they applied
for patents on plants and animals. When civil society protested, industry responded, "Why all the fuss? If
you allow the patenting of micro-organisms, why not plants and lab rats?"
In the 1990s, corporations and governments began to patent genes, snippets of DNA, and entire human
cell lines. When indigenous peoples protested, patent offices responded, "Don't worry. Human cell lines
are just microorganisms."
Meanwhile, patents made it illegal for farmers to save and re-use proprietary seed. The seed/biotech
industry denounced the 12,000-year old right of farmers to save harvested seed as patent infringement.
With the advent of nano-scale technologies, corporations are patenting essential building blocks of all
living and non-living things. Industry is redefining life to create hybrid organisms that will take on
machine functions. When we tell them they have gone too far, they will reply, "Don't worry. We're all
just machines."
Google's motto, "Don't be Evil," may soon take a backseat to a new mission statement unveiled by CEO Eric Schmidt in early March 2006: "We want to be able to store everybody's information all the time."(9) Already causing concern over the way it uses (or could use) the vast amount of Google-user information it has collected and stored over the years, the company has now set the sights of its all-seeing eyes even higher. Google's massive computer power and cutting-edge data-mining capacity make it a logical partner for Venter and his ever-expanding collection of DNA samples taken from humans, animals and microbes that live in soil, sea and air. In The Google Story, the 2005 book by Mark Malseed and David A. Vise, Venter referred to the pairing of a giant search engine and massive amounts of genomic data as "the ultimate intersection of technology and health." Venter expects that the details of one's genetic code "should be broadly available through a service like Google within a decade."(10) Since the publication of The Google Story, however, Google has downplayed its role in the project, perhaps because the ethical issues related to genetic privacy are even stickier than the cyber-privacy issues currently bogging down the company.
Slashdot Mirror
The Captain Hook Award to Google in the category of "worst threat to genetic privacy," has attracted some strong reaction. A few people have written in Google's defense, claiming that Google isn't a biopirate and that the Coalition Against Biopiracy is wrong to name them. They argue that it isn't biopiracy because Google will not be patenting the genomic information they will be storing -- and, since anyone can access the information, its not monopolistic. They point out that this approach is actually anti-monopolistic because the genomic information would be freely available to everyone. And if genomic information is easily available, Google's defenders point out, it is more likely to facilitate the discovery of cures and new medical breakthroughs.
Here's our response:
First, the award wasn't for 'biopiracy' it was specifically for posing a 'threat to genetic privacy'. Even if Google makes all the genomic data it holds anonymous -- it is still possible to identify an individual's data by genetic fingerprinting. On Google Video, Google has a video of an internal talk on genomic databases where the speaker admits this is a big potential problem, and a troubling issue that Google is going to face in the future.
But whether or not genomic information is available for free or not is not the point - the important point is that it would facilitate access without consent. When you download a document from the internet (via Google) you have the implied consent of the person who posted it to that public space that it is now for common use - this is enough because this is only data and not much more - it is not as personal as an individual's genomic information. By contrast when you access somebody's genomic data you need to have explicit consent because this is something very personal that has an important bearing on their identity, health, right-to-privacy, personhood etc. Access to an individual's genomic information -- in the wrong hands -- opens up possibilities of discrimination in the workplace, for example. If Google makes all personal genomic data available for anyone to use it is also making that available to profit-making enterprises -- and it's not clear how they could put in place an adequate consent mechanism to do this. This data is not Google's to redistribute (and it shouldn't even be Craig Venter's). It is also misleading to think that this data is going to be freely and equally available to everyone, because only certain specialized knowledge enterprises have the ability to make use of such data, and, by and large they are private, for-profit and they won't re-distribute a penny back to the people whose genomic information they are using. Genomic information is not like software code and it's wrong to compare them -- it belongs very personally to individuals. When you use or distribute that information without explicit consent, there is a victim. The 2005 Captain Hook Award to Google is intended to raise questions and concerns about a future threat to genetic privacy. We believe these issues need public attention and should be widely debated to forestall the most dangerous and socially harmful scenarios.
The Coalition Against Biopiracy also received a few complaints about naming Craig Venter as a recipient of one of this year's Captain Hook Awards. We believe he's quite deserving. Go here for more background on Venter's 2004 global expedition to collect microbial biodiversity:
http://www.etcgroup.org/article.asp?newsid=442
http://www.etcgroup.org/article.asp?newsid=473
Venter is the flamboyant scientist who first grabbed headlines back in 1991. While employed at NIH, part of the US government's Human Genome Project, when he filed for US patents on thousands of gene sequences from the human brain.
Venter's global expedition to collect microbial diversity challenges national sovereignty and raises more doubts about the already problematic acce
The rallying cry "no patents on life" has become a line in a technological and legal sandstorm. Although the notion of intellectual monopolies can be traced back to early Greece, patents did not come into their own until Britain's Industrial Revolution when the inventors of textile machinery demanded "protection." Recognizing that patents would make technology accessible only to well-heeled manufacturers, smaller enterprises protested. The response: "Don't worry. We only seek to patent the machines we invented."
In the 1920s and 30s, when rose and chrysanthemum breeders demanded intellectual property for their flowers, they argued that it was unfair to grant patents to machine inventors but to deny equal rights to ornamental inventors. Although some were repelled by the idea that living things could be patented, the flower companies replied, "Don't worry. These patents protect only decorative plants - not food crops."
In the 1960s, when plant breeders called upon governments to grant them intellectual property over food crops, they said it was unfair to recognize the minor contributions of ornamental breeders without recognizing the contributions of the breeders of crop varieties. The companies chided their critics by saying, "Don't be alarmed. We just want breeders' rights to protect plant varieties; we're not patenting plants, animals or human genetic material, and we would never stop farmers from saving seed."
In 1980, the Gene Giants won patents on genetically modified microbes. A few years later they applied for patents on plants and animals. When civil society protested, industry responded, "Why all the fuss? If you allow the patenting of micro-organisms, why not plants and lab rats?"
In the 1990s, corporations and governments began to patent genes, snippets of DNA, and entire human cell lines. When indigenous peoples protested, patent offices responded, "Don't worry. Human cell lines are just microorganisms."
Meanwhile, patents made it illegal for farmers to save and re-use proprietary seed. The seed/biotech industry denounced the 12,000-year old right of farmers to save harvested seed as patent infringement.
With the advent of nano-scale technologies, corporations are patenting essential building blocks of all living and non-living things. Industry is redefining life to create hybrid organisms that will take on machine functions. When we tell them they have gone too far, they will reply, "Don't worry. We're all just machines."
Google's motto, "Don't be Evil," may soon take a backseat to a new mission statement unveiled by CEO Eric Schmidt in early March 2006: "We want to be able to store everybody's information all the time."(9) Already causing concern over the way it uses (or could use) the vast amount of Google-user information it has collected and stored over the years, the company has now set the sights of its all-seeing eyes even higher. Google's massive computer power and cutting-edge data-mining capacity make it a logical partner for Venter and his ever-expanding collection of DNA samples taken from humans, animals and microbes that live in soil, sea and air. In The Google Story, the 2005 book by Mark Malseed and David A. Vise, Venter referred to the pairing of a giant search engine and massive amounts of genomic data as "the ultimate intersection of technology and health." Venter expects that the details of one's genetic code "should be broadly available through a service like Google within a decade."(10) Since the publication of The Google Story, however, Google has downplayed its role in the project, perhaps because the ethical issues related to genetic privacy are even stickier than the cyber-privacy issues currently bogging down the company.