[Diggers350] Digital Commons - Pirate Bay Facebook Microsoft full article

[Paul Mobbs]

Hi all,

Sorry, some of what follows might offend...

..then again -- as Zizek outlines at the beginning of the wonderful
recent documentary "The Pervert's Guide to Ideology" -- often the
objective truth is more offensive because deep-down you know it's true.


On Thu, 2013-12-19 at 20:17 +0000, Tony Gosling wrote:
> How come now one did this ? Its been legally 
> obvious since the Guardian Snowden stories in June 96/7/8)

Trouble is, the moment you click 'OK' to the terms and conditions of
these services you're signing your rights away for their financial
interest. Ultimately this case will be whether European Law overrides
the imposed US-based contract terms which those involved freely assented
to in order to use the service.

There's a really excellent recent documentary on this, "Terms and
Conditions May Apply" --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzyafieRcWE (watch this!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terms_and_Conditions_May_Apply


For more on that see John Naughton's excellent article --

"To the internet giants, you're not a customer. You're just another
user", John Naughton, Guardian On-line, 9th June 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jun/09/internet-giants-just-another-customer

 

Though it always causes raised eyebrows when I say this, if you don't
like the digital surveillance gig then you can see the person most
directly blame in a mirror!

People blindly sign-on to Facebook, buy smart phones, do Twitter,
without ever wondering precisely *what* it is for -- and what they might
do differently if they were not so bound to 'fashion'.

All the Internet's free services, along with many mobile phone apps, are
simply data collection services for the corporations (or rather for the
state's arms-length proxies, the corporations). That's what they're for,
because that's the funding model for their operation. With that a priori
position, you sign-on to these services at your own risk!


{sorry, I feel the need to capitalise here...}

YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO MOBILE PHONES, MICRO$OFT WINDOWS, CREDIT CARDS AND
FACEBOOK IN ORDER TO LIVE AND BE A PRODUCTIVE LIFE!

Life -- and our use of technology in particular -- is a set of conscious
choices which yield a certain set of costs or benefits. There are always
options with any particular choice, even the option of 'none of the
above' (my favourite, especially in relation to mobile phones, credit
cards, Facebook, Twitter).

If you want to do GMail, Hotmail, Facebook etc. and be monitored, then
that's entirely your decision -- but don't complain about being
monitored because these operations are an intrinsic part of how the
service is provided to you. 

Alternately you can refuse to use Facebook et. al.; and can pay a
relatively small amount to a small/independent ISP (I recommend GreenNet
-- http://www.gn.apc.org/ ) and run your own email service, simple web
site, bulletin board or blog which will not be subject to all the
surveillance and cookie collection. Although, without highly noticeable
IP anonymisation (which, like using TOR or encrypted tunnels, rather
defeats the point of doing it anonymously), the traffic across the
Internet will still be monitored (that's what the NSA has been doing).

If they stopped collecting and marketing your data, then they wouldn't
make money and you'd have to pay the full price for that service -- so
if you really *believe* that we shouldn't be collecting/marketing
private data, you'd be paying for your own privacy-protected on-line
services in any case.


Yes, it's more difficult to take control of how you use technology -- at
the very least, it requires that you have some understanding of how it
functions and how you can get the best performance out of it. However,
the pay-back for that is the knowledge acquired will enable you to be
far more creative in the ways in which you might express yourself.

Life is about negotiating conscious choice -- when you elect to sign
away your choice in return for certain dodgy services, when there are
alternative options available which don't entail that loss of control,
then who should you really blame? (stupidity is a right, not a
privilege!)


P.

-- 

"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government,
nor are we for this party nor against the other but we are
for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom,
that these may be exalted in our nation, and that goodness,
righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity with
God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burrough, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')

Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864
email - mobbsey at gn.apc.org
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/index.shtml
public key - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/mobbsey_public_key-2013-2.asc
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