Night Strike wrote: PLAYER57832 wrote:LOL... privacy.. but who would bother reading anyone's email anyway. Who cares if Google and Kraft foods know whatever they want about you already? [sarcasm]
The threat to us is having private business, without any oversight, in full control of our communications.. even this one.
Private businesses do not have police powers. If you choose not to do business with them, then they cannot affect you.
Absolutely wrong, today.... and impossible. Anyone here uses the internet. You can claim we are "willing consumers", and to a point, you are correct, EXCEPT, without the internet it is increasingly impossible.. not just difficult, but truly
impossible to get information. The internet is no longer "just a business", it is the primary mode of information transmission. I used "Google" as an example, but the same is true for all the search engines and even the various platforms we have to use. The internet is no longer optional, no longer a truly open and free choice, it is necessary to fully participate in today's world.
Do you truly understand the implications and irony of, on the one hand blaming the government for spying and not keeping control of our data, while completely ignoring the fact that Google just pronounce that there were no privacy concerns with its search of email because "
no one should have any expectation of privacy". It took no legislation, complaints were essentially ignored. Contrast that with the fact that anyone even trying to search your mail faces serious legal hurdles. Sure, we all pretty much know that the CIA could, if they wanted, see our mail... BUT to take action on it, to use it, either in a court of law, to publish it in most any manner would require at least a court order, and often is flat out shut down. Technology has, for a long time, allowed people to listen in on phone conversations. Yet.. to USE that information requires more than a simple court order in most cases, even if its law enforcement.
Do I LIKE the fact that our medical data is not fully secure? NO! BUT.. place the blame where it belongs. The blame is in a society that seems to believe the internet is basically secure and private, when it never has been. THAT is the error. The error is in assuming our most private information could be simply transmitted on a wide scale without a breach of security. We see the counter to that all over, but folks like you continue to claim "no problem, because its private enterprise and people 'choose' it". Seriously? Yes, I "choose" to bank, because I am not Amish and don't want to walk around with piles of cash in my purse (or my husband's wallet). I "choose to participate in the 21rst century, so yeah.. I bank. Because I bank, my information is available on the internet. According to the laws, the statements and permissions we all sign, any risk is basically ours because we have "chosen" to do this. REALLY?
Might not be as urgent as "choosing" to eat, but the whole reason so much of our infrastructure was originally placed in government hands was precisely because they are so needed that we cannot just depend on the vagaries of for profit entities to protect our interests.
Google, right now, has the best of all worlds for business or the worst for the rest of us..though, thankfully, they are not utilizing the worst possibilities (at least yet.. and let me be clear, it won't actually be Google that will take the nefarious step, but some other group using the basic model and distorting it). Competition doesn't really work to control them because there are no real, viable options. Any "options" already have to fit within a structure pretty much defined by Google. Things about the internet and search engines can change, but we have the internet and it will continue to operate on basic algorithms. The motive to "improve" searches by "tailoring" them to "specific desires and needs" is just too great to ignore. You and I can each can "google" (using that as a general verb, not necessarily Google specifically) a science or economic or political question and, first, BOTH of us will be faced with a series of "related ads" and for profit paid sites. Second, the order of answers won't be the same. they will be based only partially on what we actually ask, and partially on what we have asked before. In the case of Google specifically (and likely other sites as well, though the specifics of each varies a bit), BOTH of our queries will be influenced by the "most popular" prior searches overall. If I type "go", it will instantly be filled in with various endings, depending on what folks before me have searched. That can be fun, but it is also scary when you realize how easily influenced people are.
In science, this has very direct impacts. If you ask something about healthcare, for example, and all you get are conservative ideologues, then you intuitively are going to be biased to think those views are both more prominent AND more correct. YET.. that may not be the case at all. To know, requires an extensive search and time that most of us, particularly just for a basically casual chat just don't have.
I would suggest that this difference in search information is a very BIG reason why you and I, some others have different views.
Night Strike wrote:The government will affect you whether you choose to or not. Plus, the government is specifically outlawed from searching private conversations without a warrant...there is no such law against a private company doing it.
Yes, exactly. You rail against the government but give private companies a complete pass... even though the government has no true individual vested interest, just the varied interests of a lot of politicians to be elected, and the private enterprise has all the interest to gain profit.
And... private enterprise WILL and DOES very much impact all of us, whether we are customers or now.
