other side. Fishbowll watched as the heavyweights of the internet world argued principles when everyone knew that the real interests at stake were their ability to attract users, learn about their preferences and sell advertising. Transparency suited the search engines; privacy, the social networks. How much of each the users actually wanted didn’t seem to figure at all.
Every blogger on the net and every tech pundit on mainstream media weighed in. Politicians had their say. Soon the dark forces of the internet were attracted to the fray and a number of denial-of-service attacks, designed to overload the targeted services and render them unusable, were launched at companies on both sides of the divide, with each side accusing the other of fomenting the unrest. A previously unheard-of group claimed responsibility with a plague-on-both-their-houses statement and issued a manifesto prickling with anarchist ideology.
Everyone had been expecting a skirmish like this to happen for so long that no one seemed to ask the one question that should have been first to everyone’s mind: why now?
As the conflict settled into an edgy stalemate over the next few days, Andrei monitored the list sizes generated by Fishbowll searches. They ran steady, at 30 to 50 per cent of the sizes before the crisis had broken, suggesting that other social networks were watching before acting, waiting to see the outcome of the conflict. The more ardent users of Fishbowll had noticed the absence of Homeplace contacts. Questions were being asked in the Grotto. Andrei told Ben to let them go unanswered. Those who knew about the way internet searches were constructed would already have worked out that Fishbowll must have been affected. Everyone else, which was the vast majority, was unaware of it. User growth on Fishbowll was continuing at the same rate as before.
Homeplace still hadn’t formally admitted to what it was doing, but it faced the possibility of a backlash from its own massive user base. Mike Sweetman had a record of taking so many liberties with their data and trying to dominate their usage of the internet in so many ways that no one trusted that anything he did was in their interest. Those users were also users of search engines, and the search companies were hoping they could persuade them that search would become ineffective if transparency levels were allowed to fall so low.
But perhaps the threat that had most impact on Sweetman wasn’t anything that had developed in response to the internet but a century-old judicial weapon that government had in its locker to wield, if provoked, against overmighty business.
There was a lot of unease in certain political circles that social networks were creating monopoly positions on the net, locking users into their services in ways that users didn’t understand or found it almost impossible to opt out of. Antitrust law gave the Department of Justice the power to act against monopolistic practices and it had already let it be known that it was monitoring the behaviour of the largest social networks. Cutting access by search engines to Homeplace would only move it closer to action.
There was never any formal admission that officials of the nation’s law enforcement arm met Mike Sweetman in those weeks after he blocked access. It was possible that the Justice Department’s increasingly pointed public statements were sufficient. In any event, three weeks after Andrei had first noticed the Fishbowll’s list sizes contracting, Homeplace took down its blocking program. Immediately, Fishbowll’s list sizes were back to normal.
The search engines trumpeted it as a victory for transparency on the net. Their shareholders trumpeted it as a victory for their share price. Andrei, Kevin and Ben thought they had merely been lucky bystanders. They learned better the next day.
9
‘ONE HUNDRED MILLION,’ said Andrei.
Ben and Kevin stared at him.
‘Dollars?’ said Ben.
‘No, rubles.’
‘Mike Sweetman’s offering you a hundred million dollars?’ said Kevin.
Andrei nodded.
‘When did this happen?’
‘He called me this morning.’
Ben and Kevin glanced at each other.
‘What did you say?’ asked Ben.
‘What would you have wanted me to have said?’
Ben frowned. ‘I don’t know.’ He drew a deep breath. One hundred million dollars. His stake would be worth $9 million.
‘How long have you been talking to him?’ asked Kevin.
‘I haven’t,’ said Andrei. ‘He just rang me today. I’ve never spoken to him before.’
‘Has he seen our figures?’
‘No.’
‘Our user numbers?’
‘No.’
‘Seriously?
‘He hasn’t seen anything.’
‘And he’s offering you a hundred million?’
Andrei shrugged.
Kevin shook his head in amazement.
They were at Yao’s. Lopez stopped at the table. ‘Everything OK?’