We knew this day would come. The net couldnt stay free from commercial and government paranoia for more than a few years. This is the beginning of the end.

Governments from the ying of the US gov to the yang of The “People’s” Republic of China have made demands on major internet companies for private/sensitive information and all, except Google, have caved in.

The result now is that the internet is divided by two groups that I call:

Group C (the collaborators): the companies that will drop their pants before bending over for such governments as The People’s Republic of China and the US gov’t, resulting in the jailing of journalists (e.g. Shi Tao, pictured) in the case of China, or increasingly intrusive “data” requests in the US.

Group L (for liberty):the companies that “Just Say No” to government intrusion. Period.

And in case you’ve been living on Planet Yahoo! all this time, Shi Tao was jailed for 10 years after Yahoo! handed over his identity to the Chinese government. His crime? Revealing information about how the Chinese government intended to censor information on the 15-year anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square. His mistake? He sent the information via a Yahoo! Email address.

Yahoo! claims it didnt know the reason the Chinese gov’t wanted the information. So basically Yahoo! bends over and asks questions later in countries with human rights records as bad as China’s. This is only a good business policy for net companies if we let them get away with it. Check out BooYahoo! - a blog determined to see that doesn’t happen.

Disingenuous Child “Protection”
You could cry that the US government’s interest in a random list of websites is only to protect children. But that’s what I call spin; how does a random list of sites protect anyone? It’s more likely another US government doublespeak for “we just wanna pry”.

Under the banner of “protecting children”, democratic governments can do what they like; they are, after all, masters of spin and propaganda - and they know how to pull all the right strings to get voters to blindly follow like chickens to the slaughter.

If the net really is such a dangerous place, why let your kids on it at all? And if you can’t stop them going on the net, you probably can’t stop them from overriding any childminder device that you have on your computer, or clicking past those 18+ warning pages that are only really there to warn those so-called “adults” who are offended by anyone who’s not covered from head to foot in a Burqa.

Then there’s the shady “adult content” that still needs proper defining. What do you want to protect your kids from exactly?

Bad language? Listen to their iPods or classmates; it’s not the internet that’s teaching them to swear. Porn? They can go to your local newsagent, neighbourhood gangsta or their school friends and get that along with cigarettes, alcohol and drugs. Paedos? These people hang out on children’s websites, not adult ones, so your kids are safer on adult websites.

The point is that the threat to your children is real in the real world. Your kids reading and seeing things on the net is not going to turn them into failures that will only bring shame on your family name. If you’ve educated them properly and brought them up in a stable environment, they’d be far less shocked by anything online than you would be.

For the most part, the internet is an active technology. In other words, you only get to certain websites if you choose to click on them, search for them, or type their URL into the address line at the top of your web browser. If your kids are visiting dodgy websites, it’s because they *choose* to. Why should adults be censored or spied on just because kids choose to visit adult sites?

Quite simply, if you leave your kids in the safety of government officials - and government “policy” - then you’re probably not fit for parenting and should consider sterilisation.

Business vs. Liberty
Perhaps Google’s decision not to hand over search information to the US gov’t is not all altruistic. Google’s intention is probably primarily to protect itself from its main competitors and not to protect our privacy and liberty. But the result is the same.

Google may also be forced to hand over information, but at least we know they’re willing to put up a fight before doing so. Compare that to the Yahoos, AOL’s, and MSN’s of the internet, which bend over first and ask questions later.

……………………….

Group C companies: AOL, MSN, Yahoo!
Group L company: Google

Should Google share its data?

Online poll results:
Yes 136 votes (8%)
No 1,668 votes (92%)

Reporters Without Borders have an excellent online resource about our fleeting online freedom: http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=273

This is the beginning of the end - but only if we let it be.

Further Reading:
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/cctimes/news/state/13669734.htm?
source=rss&channel=cctimes_state