Parasites on the World Wide Web

I think everyone’s seen that pop-up at least once in their lifetime on the Internet, the flashing one that reads “You are the 1,000,000 visitor on this site. You’ve won [prize]! Click here!” Other popular ones are the ones about a secret in losing weight, gaining muscles, or losing wrinkles. And we always hear about the ones with the scantily clad women for those that indulge in those lovely videos of the horizontal tango.

I’m sure you’re wondering what this has to do with parasites, unless you managed to read that helpful set of larger text at the top of this post… I’ve decided to do another parasite post in a less biological and clinical aspect (as in my social parasitism post). Since parasites sneak below our cultural view more often than not, let’s examine them in one of our keys to everyday simplicity, the World Wide Web, a.k.a. the Internet.

From the day we turned on the computer and set up access to the Internet, we have been vulnerable to Internet Parasite Software. Among these come familiar digital terms such as viruses, worms, adware (those exceptional pop ups you have a blocker for), and spyware [1]. Occasionally, a new virus will grace the span of the Internet and all the usual defensive programs can do nil to stop it from infecting computers across the globe. Usually then, a news story will report the dangers on our televisions, using words as worm, virus, or trojan horse.

But never parasite.

Essentially, that’s what all of these things are. Parasites. They serve no good, only harm. Except for maybe spyware gifting your credit card or identification information to that hacker halfway across the world, digital parasites serve no benefit to anyone. If anything, a new digital parasite only breeds hysteria once the news gets a hold of it.

But digital parasites are not just the malware that make a cozy nest in your computer. They also encompass the pirates for movies, television, and music. Come clean. More likely than not, you’ve downloaded a song or movie that you just didn’t want to pay for when it was sitting in front of you on your computer screen, glowing like a beacon with its glittered price tag reading FREE. In this case, the definition of parasite falls from black and white to grey. These pirates do spread content to people that might not have access and definitely provide a source of advertising, but for the producers of this content, these pirates are more parasitic than not.

In an attempt to hinder piracy, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) protects copyrighted work on the never ending reach of the Internet [2]. Robert Levine, former Billboard executive editor, discusses the danger of digital piracy, how the DMCA is not enough, and how the industry can fight back in his book, Free Ride: How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back [3].

Digital parasites aren’t just the individuals uploading copyrighted media online for everyone, but there has been argument of our beloved search engine, Google, being a digital parasite. Google and other “companies that aggregate mainstream media content without paying a fee are the 'parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet,'” claims Robert Thomson, editor of Wall Street Journal [4]. In short, the argument is that Google collects all this content (including copyrighted material) for free while receiving revenues for their sorting.

I doubt the general public would consider Google a parasite. Not when it answers our questions, provides us with email services, an online backup for files, among other things. (Although I think we can all agree Google+ is just a waste of space.) But to those who provide content, Google does collect cash for the content provider's hard work.

Corporate conglomerates collecting revenues for free content, harmful software that seeks to spread and corrupt within your files or hard drives, and the mysterious pirates who sail the seven seas of the Internet with plenty of booty… The parasites of the World Wide Web take many different forms depending on who you are and what sort of content you provide in the greater scheme of things. I think we can all agree that parasitic software needs to be guarded against, but the other two categories of digital parasites reside in the grey area of parasitic entities.

It's up to you, but next time that free download siren calls your name, or you search on Google for anything of interest, you might want to think twice about aiding a digital parasite.