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So 12 years from now our work lives will be our lives entire?

That’s an unsettling thought. But if we’re always connected, always on the grid, then what’s to stop it from coming to pass? What’s to stop “the expansion of the work to encompass all time and all space,” as Nick Carr described it in his comments to Pew researchers. A reassertion of the same boundaries we’re seeing erased, I imagine. Otherwise we may have this to look forward to…

Said Benjamin Ben-Baruch, senior market intelligence consultant and applied sociologist for Aquent: “In 2020…a myth will develop that outside of formally scheduled activities, work and play can be seamlessly integrated in most of these workers’ lives. Employers will attempt to convince us that this is a net positive for people because we will be able to blend personal/professional duties…. However the reality will be quite different. Because we can be surveilled whenever we are ‘connected’ and especially because we can be surveilled whenever we are connected using our employer-provided devices, we can and will be controlled. Our employers will gain even more control over work-time discipline and over our lives and will be able to force even more productive working hours from us. Our lives will in fact be increasingly controlled by those who provide us with the devices that will have become increasingly necessary for us in both our work and personal lives as well as those who own and control the networks and network sites that we use and visit. Some companies will try to distinguish themselves as companies that do not actually use their power to watch and control us–but most companies will do the ‘fiscally responsible’ thing of using available technology to assert control.”

Is Google making us stupid?

The answer to that question, recently posed by Nick Carr in The Atlantic, is a resounding yes. At least in the case of Sun Sentinel publisher Tribune.

How else to explain the company’s claim that Google is largely to blame for the six-year-old news story that gutted the United Airlines share price this week?

In a statement issued Wednesday, Tribune (TXA) said that Google’s indexing of the article, “United Airlines Files for Bankruptcy,” on Google News made the story appear new, even though it was originally published on Dec. 10, 2002.

At 1:36:57 a.m. EDT, September 7, (10:36:57 p.m. PDT, September 6), our records show that the Google search agent–known as “Googlebot”–crawled the story on Sun Sentinel’s website. Our records also show that the Google search agent had previously crawled this same story numerous times, including as recently as last week. Shortly after Googlebot crawled the Sun Sentinel site this time, however, a link to the story appeared on Google News, with a date of Sept. 6, 2008, provided by Google. At 1:39:59 a.m. EDT, September 7 (10:39:59 p.m. PDT, September 6), our records show the story on the Sun Sentinel website received its first referral from Google News.

Apparently, sometime Monday morning, the story was made available to subscribers of Bloomberg News.

As we said yesterday, the December 10, 2002, story contains information that would clearly lead a reader to the conclusion that it was related to events in 2002. In addition, the comments posted along with the story are dated 2002. It appears that no one who passed this story along actually bothered to read the story itself.”

Apparently not. Certainly the Income Securities Advisors employee who published the story to the Bloomberg financial news service didn’t. Because if he did, he surely would have noticed the original publication date in the article’s dateline, right?

Wrong. Turns out the article did not have a dateline or an original publication date. There was, however, a date above the article at the top of the Web page on which it appeared: “September 7, 2008.” Add to this the fact that the article had been given eight different URLs and one of them was listed in the most-viewed section of the Sun Sentinel’s Web site and, well … clearly, this was all Google’s fault.

Please.

Publishing a news story at multiple URLs without a proper publication date in the era of search engine optimization, or SEO, seems just a bit irresponsible for a major news organization doesn’t it? Perhaps not as irresponsible as publishing that story to a financial newswire without reading it or, you know, confirming it–but irresponsible nonetheless.

The SEC is looking into the matter.

[Image Credit: blogstorm]

And the third? Well, because it never stops. Ever.

Case in point, a somewhat frivolous story, which actually does have important broader implications for the Web, about the mini-tussle between blogger Robert Scoble and Facebook.

Right away, I backed up Scoble over the popular social network, after Facebook disabled his account over his violation of its policies. The voluble blogger used a software program to scrape data off his profile.

I did so mostly because I am a big proponent of data portability and find it offensive that sites like Facebook endlessly scrape everyone’s data. But then they are shocked when people want to control their own information and move into a hypocritical protective mode of data they typically abuse.

Others disagreed, like commenters on my post and the always sharp Nick Carr, who raised the notion that Scoble was a “data thief” for trying to move some data–name, contact info and birthdays–to another service.

Wrote Carr on his Rough Type blog: “Now, if you happen to be one of those ‘friends,’ would you think of your name, email address and birthday as being ‘Scoble’s data’ or as being ‘my data.’ If you’re smart, you’ll think of it as being ‘my data,’ and you’ll be very nervous about the ability of someone to easily suck it out of Facebook’s database and move it into another database without your knowledge or permission. After all, if someone has your name, email address and birthday, they pretty much have your identity–not just your online identity, but your real-world identity.”

Carr added that “members should have the right to decide whether or not their personal information can be scraped out of the Facebook database. Scoble did not give them that choice. … Until controls are in place, unauthorized scraping of other members’ personal information shouldn’t be allowed.”

To my mind, that’s a rather nanny-state stance for him to take, given that people put that data up there for their friends to presumably use. Scoble or anyone could have simply copied down that info and transferred it (everyone does this ALL the time) manually.

Scoble’s motives in doing this were obviously benign (aside from his eternal need for attention, which is also harmless). And, big surprise, there are a lot of bad actors out there who want the data for other more nefarious reasons.

But all that’s needed, I think, is to treat people like intelligent adults and make it perfectly clear to them that some may actually use the data you post publicly for friends you accept into your online circle. That way people can decide exactly how much information they want out there.

Of course, the teapot-tempest got all resolved after Scoble promised he would no longer be naughty–even though he compared himself in a deeply goofy manner to Gandhi and then the Boston Tea Party gang–and Facebook reinstated him.

But what I loved about the story and countless ones like it was the enormous range of opinions, Twitters, posts, comments and videos (from Scoble too, of course) that were generated. While some might call it piling on or even mindless, I think it represents an amazing sign of vibrancy and energy that is promising for journalism.

While print publications might be suffering, the information business is not. Although there are many more players–some better than others–in the landscape, the changes give professionals the chance to notch up their game by delivering more energetic, more informed content that is characterized by the high standards they carry with them from old media at its best.

Of course, new business models for online content are nascent and still questionable, but smart people with great offerings can always figure out a way to benefit from the obvious interest in consumers in being able to access all kinds of information, both trusted and also even silly.

Which is why I laughed out loud when I got a link to a new Facebook group being formed to “Keep Robert Scoble Off Facebook,” all with the blessing of Fake Steve Jobs.

He wrote: “Meanwhile we’re trying to figure out if we can banish Scoble from using Apple products or visiting Apple retail stores. From what I’m told others have picked up on the same idea. Google wants him off their apps. Twitter says he’s eating up too much bandwidth. Here’s a thought. Why not banish Robert Scoble from the Internet altogether? Is that even possible? Moshe says he’s looking into it.”

Namaste.