Googly, Googly… revisited… Facebooky… Facebooky…

How is anyone surprised by the “Big Reveal”, in every entendre imaginable, from Facebook that ALL OF YOUR INFORMATION WAS USED IN A WAY THAT YOU DON’T LIKE… AND THEY TOOK YOUR FRIENDS INFO TOO… BECAUSE YOU LET THEM.

How is the news?

We’ve been talking about this for over 5 YEARS!  It’s now 032118…

And, I’m always fashionably late to the party!

Where have you been?

(Update 091113: Yesterday, Google lost a similar decision to the one below.  It was on Appeal before the Ninth Circuit.  The Folks at EPIC are happy… but doesn’t the this story make more sense and a seem little less conspiratorial now that we know the NSA has been collecting all of our data and doing so with the aid of our allies?  Originally Posted 072712)

“In April, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission fined Google, saying the company “deliberately impeded and delayed” its investigation into Street View.

It’s unclear what, if any, penalties would be imposed on Google by Britain’s ICO or regulators in any of the 10 other jurisdictions in which the company had wrongly retained Street View data.

“We need to take a look at the data… There’s all sorts of questions we need to ask,” an ICO spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity because office rules prohibit him from being named in print.”

The above quote and where I decided to begin and end it may seem a little confusing, but there is a point…

Today we find out that Google has not destroyed/deleted all of the street view info it was caught collecting in Britain. Keep in mind, when I say “street view info” that includes wi-fi networks and names, e-mail addresses and various and sundry other items of information having nothing to do with a street, or the view from it.

Here’s the fun part however… Britain’s regulators, the IOC, are very “upset”. There has been aplenty “tough” language directed at Google for this blatant breach. Yes… they are terribly, terribly upset don’t you know.

While Google has apologized, it is clearly not enough for the IOC.  In all fairness it’s not enough for me either but here’s the punch line; the IOC is demanding to see the information for “forensic analysis”.  Seriously… You Brit’s are Brilliant!  “Yes, yes, I will need to see all the pornography you have so I can determine if it is actually pornography.  I will also need plenty of time to review it… alone…”

So why did I take the above quote from where I did?

Without question Google was harvesting the same information here in the U.S. that it was in Britain.  No doubt about it.  And the U.S. is watching closely what is going on across the pond… very closely.  But why?

If the IOC is successful in gaining access to the Google information for “forensic analysis” because Google has been very, very bad… then U.S. regulators will not be far behind the Google spanking bandwagon.  What red-blooded, privacy cherishing, citizen wouldn’t want Google to be punished for collecting a bunch of info it shouldn’t have?

Well… this one.  If punishing Google requires the government seeing all of the intel, I would prefer Google to get away with it and we can deal with them in the market place.   Think about this for a second, who would you rather have possessing your secrets, a private company answerable to the legal system or a government answerable to no-one?

The monster under my bed has always scared me the most by whispering “don’t worry…  I’m from the government and I’m here to help…”.  Now he’s muttering “googly… googly..” and my parents still don’t believe me.

Your freedom is directly correlated to your ability to live your life anonymously.  If you care.

Apparently, like the rest of the planet, I may just elect to drink myself to sleep.  Unlike the rest of the planet I will only do it late at night… straight from the bottle… in front of a full length mirror… crying…

NSA disguised itself as Google to spy, say reports  (link added 091213)

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This Country Made You!

There is a disturbing idea floating around out there that one should be forever grateful for their success because “this country (U.S.) made them”.

On the contrary… you made this country.

Unless you have fully enlisted somewhere in the spectrum of Socialism… this country did not make you any more than the serial killer who decided NOT to kill you because you picked the wrong onion in the produce aisle is responsible for everything you did with your life from that moment on.

The United States is a gift to the world not because it is the creator of success… it is a gift to the world because it does not impede it. (Well at least is doesn’t do every imaginable thing to impede it… yet… give the Left time.)

So to all of you, particularly those who consider themselves “Conservatives”, think very carefully about what you are saying. Then, refrain from saying it.  If you aver that we as individuals owe an allegiance to the United States I would rather offer that the United States owes an allegiance to the individual (you).

The undeniable success of this country is not by decree from above… it is by the ingenuity and ambition that each individual has brought to the table on their own behalf… from below.

Don’t mistake what I’m saying for an inability to be grateful… I am grateful.  I’m grateful that politicians have yet to figure out how to stifle every bit of ambition and innovation in this country through their never ending drive for graft.  I’m grateful that occasionally someone speaks up when a politician attempts to create barriers to entry protecting his, and his friends, business interests from competition.

I’m grateful to see someone like Mark Zuckerberg become so successful so quickly that the very people who would have liked to claim credit (politicians who shoot at everything that flies and take credit for everything that falls) were behind the curve and can only cry and stomp their feet when those with the drive and imagination legally avoid their tax schemes and barriers to entry.

I’m grateful that our soldiers and servicemen take an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution and not “America” or “The United States”.  As the latter do not identify the specific values our founders intended, but morph into and out of the limitations set forth by them.

You should be grateful too… and when you say it’s “wrong” when one of them wants to leave the country to escape the unreasonable tax burden built on the idea that every dollar our politicians spend is imperative to the well-being of everything, then I believe you need to rethink your premises.

Let’s remember who made what and the philosophy this country was created upon.  (Start with Locke and Montesquieu then move forward… please.  It’s more important than the latest sequel at the theater.)

Facebook Shrugged?

Has Ayn Rand struck again?

Is Mark Zuckerberg playing the role of Francisco De Anconia?

Is Facebook filling the role of De Anconia Copper?

Was all of this an ingenious ploy to puff up a company to such a degree that all of the Limousine Liberal Establishment, and the herd of useful idiots, would run to throw their money at it?

Are there really “investors” out there who buy businesses with no business model?

Could it be possible that the joke is on them?

Can he get away with the same scheme twice?

Will they really let him do it again on the NYSE?

What will happen when they finally figure out they’ve been taken?

Stay tuned for next weeks show to find out…

Same Face time…

same Face channel…

“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater the effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders — what would you tell him to do? I don’t know. What could he do? What would you tell him? To shrug.”  – Francisco de Anconia