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| Unwrapping the Hype of the Internet Giants |
No, this isn't a swing post, but I'm writing it because I think it's more important than swing. Much, much more important.
For a while now I've been hearing our online community constantly rage against any kind of boundaries when it comes to the Internet. They want endless freedoms because, let's face it, there are no consequences for any of our actions on the Internet.
There are laws and boundaries that rule us offline. Traffic laws, state laws, federal laws not to mention tax laws.
But the Internet has none.
We can be lewd. We can be criminal. We can slander and sext and twitter away without a single solitary line or boundary in sight. And so can the companies we use.
They collect, collect, collect. They collect our data here, there and everywhere. Every single company that ever sold us on them because of their privacy standards has completely reversed those standards. Most have done it without ever telling us.
And when they do, it's hidden in such jargon that a professor of law would have to break it down for you. Or CNET. CNETcatches everything - if you know how to look for what they find.
In order to prevent any kind of blow back for completely violating the very trust their companies sold in their welcome brochures of old, they came up with a line of defense. They sold us a line of propaganda. Just like McDonald's did so long ago.
A son drove his elderly mother into a McD's drive thru and ordered some breakfast. They wanted to eat together, so they pulled into a parking spot (as so many of us do) and started to unwrap their meals.
The elderly woman tucked her coffee between her legs and started to put in her cream and sugar....
do you know the rest of the story? The one NO ONE told correctly? No radio host, talk show host or newscast told correctly?
Did you hear about her 3rd degree burns that ran the length of her buttocks to knees? Did you hear about the skin grafts? Did you hear about the 200 degree coffee!!! And that McDonald's had a fully documented rule of keeping all coffee at 200 plus degrees at all times???
And did you hear about all the others - the skin grafts, the devastating burns, the ruined walks, limbs and lengthy scars???
No. You didn't. You heard that a woman sued McDonald's because her coffee was too hot.
That was the McDonald's propaganda.
You can bet Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook all have their own for you.
Because they wrote a big letter to the President of the United States, asking for stricter rules and regulations on what the government collects on its users.
Really???
What hypocrisy.
Because they are already doing the same to their users. Even more, actually. Google was just caught reading all of emails that go in and out of their gmail accounts.
That means that if I own a gmail account, Google gets to read it. They literally stated, in court! that their users have "no expectation of privacy."
Really?
REALLY?
It also means they are reading all of the emails I'm sending to gmail account holders too. I'm pretty sure I didn't ask for that.
I want my email to be mine. To be private. To be protected by the government. It's the electronic version of mail - and mail is considered sacred by the federal government.
So Google, Microsoft and the others came up with another line of propaganda - just like McD's did back in the day with the poor elderly woman who was in the hospital for months. What's the line? You've probably used it yourself:
"Don't expect privacy when you're getting something for free."
Again... really??? REALLY???
No. This is complete BS. It's what they created and what they want you to use when you have the common sense to speak up when their hypocrisy is at its most high.
How many of us, at the start of the digital age, would have signed up for an email account if they had told us it would not be private? And how many companies are left to compete with the giants who own our email accounts? Every time one starts, they are bought up... where is the competition? Where did our options go?
You can't eliminate all of our options for email services in order to force our email communications to be public!
The system is broken. Very broken.
But I for one, am looking for a place I can park my emails with confidence. No, dear Google, Hotmail and the rest... you cannot write a letter to the president asking for something to be prohibited, unless you plan on placing the same restrictions on yourself. Please. We are not that stupid.
Signed & Sincerely,
Katherine bloody Eastvold
