It is being described as the first time since 2013 that Google has publicly denied or stopped using an individual’s work for commercial purposes. But instead of an individual, the subject this time is actual performance space.
The company has been at the center of a storm over the past week, after Jonathan Kanter — who often performs in a Brooklyn, New York-based poetry reading space known as the Moth — noticed that Google Analytics had begun to track and track a series of his public events in more ways than one.
“At times, the presentation analytics tools made it possible to mine the status of his public events, to see which attendees came to which events,” we wrote after Kanter posted about his predicament online. “Such tools help us understand which products we should build and how we should build them.”
It is the first time the company has stopped using something like Kanter’s work without giving any reason for the move, except in this case, the performance space and its eventual audience of none was not defined by the company. Though perhaps not for long.
*This article has been updated to reflect that Kanter has an Internet presence not limited to poetry readings, while our own article initially stated otherwise.
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