The Seventh Annual Gibbs Golden Turkey Awards

Well, it's that time of the year again … yes folks, it's time for the Seventh Annual Gibbs Golden Turkey Awards which recognize those individuals, companies or entities that don't, won't, or can't come to grips with reality, maturity, ethical behavior, and or social responsibility because of their blindness, self-imposed ignorance, thinly veiled political agenda, rapaciousness and greed, or their blatant desire to return us to the Dark Ages.

Top IT turkeys of 2010

And this year we have a staggering number of nominees. Yes, 2010 has been an outstanding year for the wackos, the foolish, the misguided, and the downright venal.

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Well, it's that time of the year again … yes folks, it's time for the Seventh Annual Gibbs Golden Turkey Awards which recognize those individuals, companies or entities that don't, won't, or can't come to grips with reality, maturity, ethical behavior, and or social responsibility because of their blindness, self-imposed ignorance, thinly veiled political agenda, rapaciousness and greed, or their blatant desire to return us to the Dark Ages.

Top IT turkeys of 2010

And this year we have a staggering number of nominees. Yes, 2010 has been an outstanding year for the wackos, the foolish, the misguided, and the downright venal.

Where to start? Well, the politicians have had a field day over the last year. Obviously the issue of net neutrality, meaning service providers treat all traffic equally and even refrain from giving priority to their own offerings, has been huge.

While it might seem that the Federal Communications Commission should be a leading candidate for a good thrashing on the issue, it is by no means the most deserving GGTA nominee. Even so, we award the FCC a TGT (a tiny golden turkey) all the same. The commission's heart seems to be in the right place, but it didn't man up to see it through.

Nope, when it comes to an award for a ridiculous stance on net neutrality my vote goes to Google and Verizon for their horribly ill-conceived proposal that would bar wired ISPs from messing with the data they transport while allowing cellular service providers to shape traffic to their heart's content. This proposal is so stupid as to deserve a special category of its own.

Worse still, by putting this forward with Google's name on it, the dastardly duo (a marriage that could only have been made in one of the darker corners of Hell) managed to muddy the debate rather than bringing any new clarity to the discussion.

While we're on the subject of Google, the company's CEO, Eric Schmidt, deserves a special award for his declaration at around the same time as the joint net neutrality proposal, for opining that, "In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you."

I discussed this in a Backspin at the time and I think what most struck me was that Schmidt has given us a very clear and very worrisome vision of how Google will evolve. What Schmidt is arguing for is the end of any kind of anonymity online as a prerequisite for some kind of national security, whereas the real benefit will fall to Google and the other entities that see the hoi poli as fodder for the advertising canons. Its a disingenuous and self-serving ploy.

Some might say these positions were always in the cards for Google given that the company is a commercial entity in such a powerful position, but to have this so clearly underlined deserves all of the recognition and fame that goes with getting a GGTA.

My pick for an award for the most ill-conceived, dangerous tech-related political issue has got to be the "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" (COICA), which gives the government the ability to shut down or, more accurately, censor, any Web site in the world if it is found to be "dedicated to infringing activities" – a wonderfully vague way of saying, "suspected of piracy in some way, shape, or form without due process."