The reading Google Earth and the nation, by Sangeet Kumar discusses the growing power of Google and how as a non-state actor is influencing and affecting behavior of nation-states. The readings main case study was India, and it's aversion to Google Earth. The reading discussed the security concerns India had over the inclusion of sensitive buildings, such as the presidents residence and other government buildings. This security concern was echoed by Australia, Netherlands, South Korea,Thailand, Ireland, and Russia. The reverberations of Google Earth were felt on a global scale. Google and these sovereign nations engaged in what could be seen as diplomatic negotiations regarding Google's policy, often times met with Google's "liberal credo" as Kumar says, that entails free flow of information without taking into account their own interests in seeing Google Earth thrive.
Google uses the most powerful network, the Internet, to exert it's influence. Kumar really explores how instead of a Google nation, that another nation could address it is a center-less diffused network, with no nation-state, and no governing body. How does a nation effectively maintain diplomatic relations with such a nebulous entity? In the end much like many heads-of-states do, a visit from the head of Google prompted Google to conced to India's demands, in order to foster a positive working relationship.
This Thursday the class attended “The Last Three Feet: New Media, New Approaches and New Challenges for American Public Diplomacy” which was hosted by George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy & Global Communication, the Public Diplomacy Council, and the Walter Roberts Endowment. Ambassadors and Foreign Service Officer's discussed the changing nature of diplomacy, and best practices. They spoke of the challenges in diplomacy, in a changing media scape, a lot of the issues they discussed I could see echoed by Google strategy. The increased power of non-state actors such as Google are apparent--do you think it is possible that one day Google leadership will be invited to supra-national meetings, like the U.N.? Should there be a governing mechanism to control these entities?
I think the most interesting part is that not only are we talking about non-state actors, but we are talking about a for-profit business like Google. We've already seen non-state actors, like NGOs and international organizations get involved at UN summits, like WSIS. But we have yet to see commercial entities participating in Supra-national meetings, like the U.N. I think if that were to happen, there would be a definite need for guidelines.
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