The only Reason Anyone Cares
Without their consent, starting in 2014, Facebook passed information for 87 million users to political ad targeting firm Cambridge Analytics.
They are hardly the worst offenders. Google Chrome still retains search data in incognito mode. One consumer privacy advocacy group claims YouTube (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) illegally collects data from children. Amazon stores our purchase histories, credit card information, IP addresses, friends’ email addresses, even our Social Security numbers (for those who apply for a credit card).
The internet now buzzes with story after story about how Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, and others have teamed up as the ghastly horsemen of some twenty-first-century apocalypse crusading against their righteous users on the eve of Judgment Day. Their pallid faces stare into our digital eyes as they steal our digital souls. As mere mortals, we are helpless to the end.
Like some satanic messiah ready to save the world from the evil he wrought, Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress to accept personal responsibility for the unveiling. He has vowed to rid the world of fake news, Russian interference in elections, and hate speech (whatever that is; the United States Supreme Court doesn’t know, I don’t know, and neither do you). I won’t hold my breath.
Given that teenagers now send nude photos to veritable strangers, most of the outrage over this seems manufactured. Are people honestly so stupid as to believe multibillion-dollar information companies do not make money from information, that they have nothing to hide, nothing to sell?
In age where you enter your address, phone number, email, birthday, social security number, credit card number(s), and more every time you buy anything anymore, I cannot imagine why people are so concerned that Facebook knows they like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, fried chicken, and that irritating Lee Greenwood song.
Rules to Protect Rulers
On May 25, 2018, the European Union’s onerous regulations took effect, ruining the internet overnight with popup privacy policies, clogging inboxes with notices nobody but their authors read, and promising to bloody noncompliant businesses with fines nobody but Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple can afford.
But as grandstanding senators and European internet tsars damn well know—and design laws exactly with this purpose—rules only protect rulers.
The internet always has been and always will be the anarchist’s playground.
Countless small businesses who cannot afford compliance technologies and measures have stopped selling to Europe. Others have blocked access to their site in Europe.
Even the New York Times, who otherwise welcomes privacy regulations, stays skeptical. They ask if the law will make any difference. They point out the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws may only protect megacorporations from lawsuits and smother competitors.
“Regulations help incumbents,” explains Avi Goldfarb, a marketing professor at the University of Toronto.
But what many want to know is how the hell the EU plans to enforce their rules. Are they going to send me—a guy running a personal blog to cope with a rare disease—a bill for refusing to bow to their will?
How is an agency that can’t even keep its wealthiest member nations from leaving going to enforce regulations in an increasingly globalized economy driven by an internet that’s become increasingly harder to control?
The internet always has been and always will be the anarchist’s playground, the last bastion of the free man, the final frontier where anything is possible, Marshall McLuhan’s global village at once illuminating best and worst of humanity. Crying about bullies to the recess monitor is not going to earn you anything but an after-school beatdown—or in this case, annoying popups, incessant emails, higher prices for goods and services, and hidden fees.
Consumers bear the costs of all regulations, including those concerning privacy. Facebook’s vice president of privacy thanks you for securing his job. YouTube is happy to charge you for YouTube Red, wherein you essentially pay Alphabet to collect even more of your data. Amazon gets to charge more for Prime. Cybercriminals could benefit most of all.
And in case you’ve forgotten the lessons Edward Snowden taught us, our beloved protectors invade our privacy more than anyone else.
My Privacy Policy
I do not store your data because I have no use for your data. And if I did, I would ask your permission because I’m interested in preserving your privacy and our relationship for the future, not because the EU or any other body of thugs told me to do so.
So to the EU, I say fuck you and the pale horse you rode in on. To everyone else, keep calm and internet on.
How you can Protect yourself
Use Mozilla Firefox. After its latest overhaul, it’s faster and better than Chrome. And Mozilla doesn’t make money collecting or selling your data.
Shop on eBay. Avoid taxes. Pay lower prices to smaller businesses. And the guy from the New Jersey suburb you bought a barely worn John Lennon shirt from doesn’t know or care that you also bought a knockoff Versace man thong from a cross-dresser in Miami.
Exercise caution. Use common sense. You are responsible for your own safety on land, air, sea, and online. No cop, firefighter, lifeguard, or cybernanny can protect you from every threat.