Inchoate Curmudgeon

I’ve encountered several items today prompting me to blog on what must be a worn topic.

• James Governor’s links today include a reference to Microsoft’s Terms of Use, “Just because a work is easily available on the internet or elsewhere does not mean you may use the work freely. Look for terms of use, such as Creative Commons, that explain how works you find on the Internet may be used.” The fact that anyone would feel the need to state this says something. Who picks up anything more valuable than the accidental cashier’s pen in a store without paying for it?
• My friend Adam Twittered a BBC article on the CIA hacking wikipedia pages. I’m all for national security, but start with our borders, please. This is childish and now looks really stupid.
• I saw a post on a facebook group discussing the evils of facebook’s terms of use and related conspiracy theory, that basically gives facebook the right to do whatever they want with whatever you put there. I almost have a so-what attitude about this, since privacy, like control, is an illusion we nurture to maintain our sanity.

For the last bullet, my point is about the user’s expectation of complete anonymity, not facebook’s motives and responsibilities. There is a big difference I think between the expectation that there are consequences for what you do publicly, like on facebook, versus the anonymity facebook enjoys in disposing of the information any way it wants.

If this commercial information vending activity were “in the sunshine” it would be far less likely. By the way, this is activity, whatever it is, is surely nothing compared to what the likes of Google and Yahoo do with what they know, protestations about “personally identifiable information” notwithstanding. I’m no lawyer, but all this seems a bit fast and loose compared to the constraints the credit card companies endure with respect to information we share with them. It’s way past the time to pressure our lawmakers to develop really meaningful Internet privacy legislation.

Back to the point. (I do have one.) I was reminded of Zed Shaw’s Utu project to “save the Internet through Hate.” The goal of this project resonates with me more and more. Unfettered, unilateral anonymity is the source of all manner of Internet evil. I don’t think there a lot of sound arguments in most cases for not requiring sensible positive identity, with consequences, especially in our public Internet dealings.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS