There is now an enormous multibillion-dollar industry based on the collection and sale of this personal and behavioral data,
[snip]
"There's no code of conduct. There's no standard. There's nothing that safeguards privacy and establishes rules of the road."
Which gives rise to a simple statement:
ONLY IDIOTS HAVE A FACEBOOK AND/OR MYSPACE PAGE IN HIS/HER R/L NAME!!!!
Anyone who needs or wants to contact me already knows how to do so. I have no interest in figments of years gone by.
Anyone who thinks anything they put on any web site has privacy is a fool.
I have the perfect idea for a company that would make lots of money and provide everyone privacy they want. It’s called Disinformation Inc.
Basically it fills up the Internet with tons of crap about you, randomly browses the web from your PC, posts thousands of photos with your name, puts all kinds of fake random postings on different blogs under your name, so Google and the data-miners won’t know if you’re a turnip farmer or a mercenary.
It’d be like that leprechaun that tied a yellow ribbon around every tree in the forest to prevent that guy from finding the right one with the treasure.
Don’t use Gmail!
Absolutely nothing new here. This started 30+ years ago with grocery store “bonus” cards. The “bonus” wasn’t exactly as advertised......
I was buying a bottle of wine at Target and they asked for my ID (even tho I am 37 with a beard). I showed them my DL in my wallet. They asked me to take it out. I did. Then they got ready to swipe it in their magnetic scanner. I said .. “Woe! Hold on there!!” I explained that they were not going to swipe my DL into their computer. A 16 yo bagboy told me the computer doesn’t store any information it just reads your birthdate.
to which I replied.. “Go get your manager, right now.”
It is outright illegal for these companies to traffic in your social security number. Line them up against the wall and begin the trial phase now.
Oh wait, they bought our legislature 45 years ago when they first started getting blowback over marketing scams.