Internet Outlook with Richard Wiggins | 39

Watch Out for the Microsoft Cartoon Censor

Does Microsoft Have a Valid Interest to Protect?

You do have to consider Microsoft's perspective here. I interviewed a senior developer in their Agent group while researching my article last year, and they've invested a lot of research dollars in trying to build systems that make computers more accessible to end users. Having failed with previous products such as Microsoft Bob, they are working to make animated interfaces that are friendly and helpful for a certain segment of users who still find computers rigid and too complex.

The last thing Microsoft wants to do is build animated character technology – and animated characters – that are supposed to make computers easier to use, and then have some yoyo turn around and build a "Microsoft Sucks" site. It'd be like Disney tolerating someone using Mickey Mouse to disparage Disneyworld.

Still, there's an important difference between the Genie and Mickey Mouse. Disney doesn't make Mickey Mouse freely available for the world to incorporate into Web sites. Disney carefully controls every use of their Mouse. If you think about it, you can name many uses of cartoon character "assets" in commercial ventures – the Pink Panther for Owens Corning, Snoopy for Met Life, and Dilbert for an office supply company (the latter proving that nothing in this world, not even Dilbert, is sacred).

In every one of those cases, you can bet very careful negotiation took place for the individual licensee as to what the Panther, or Snoopy, or Dilbert would say, how they would say it, how long they'd be allowed to say it. You can bet the owners of cartoon characters guard their commercial uses with very particular contracts specific to each application.

Here, Microsoft is saying "Please, world, use our Genie as you wish, but we can come along after the fact and withdraw your right to use it." Their terms are troubling:

• What does it mean to proscribe uses that encourage unlawful activities? If I train the Genie to say "Marijuana should be legal for cancer patients" am I violating the license?
• Who is to define "excessive violence"? Even proponents of censoring television content recognize that the Road Runner tricking Wile E. Coyote into falling off a cliff isn't the same kind of fare as graphic violence in a motion picture. If I train the Genie to whimsically punch out a competitor's logo, does that violate the license?
• The "diminishing of goodwill in the product" provision is especially vague. If I train the Genie to say nice things about a competing animation product – or if I just have the Genie say "Computer Agents can't help you as much as humans can" – have I violated the license?

More broadly, it's troublesome to think that a company with the monopoly position of Microsoft can make a tool available to the world at large, then limit how you can use the tool. What's next? A version of Word whose grammar checker objects when you disparage Bill Gates? A release of Internet Explorer that refuses to load pages from netscape.com? An electronic commerce system that only works with banks owned by Microsoft?