Amazon
& Ebay: Edward
Snowden is not the only big story here. What he has revealed about the hidden
wiring of our networked world... now THAT'S something!
The National
Security Agency (NSA) has long been able to access the emails, Facebook
accounts and videos of citizens across the world; or how it had secretly
acquired the phone records of millions of Americans; or how, through a secret
court, it has been able to bend nine US internet companies to its demands for
access to their users' data.
We must be
aware of changes to what the internet means. The days of the internet as a
truly global network are numbered. Today’s internet is headed towards a
geographically-divided, government-controlled arena of communications now.
US-based
internet companies cannot be trusted with our private information at all.
Google,
Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are all integral components of the
US cyber-surveillance system. Kindle's software "will provide Amazon with
data about your Device and its interaction with the Service...and information
related to the content on your Device and your use of it (such as automatic
bookmarking of the last page read and content deletions from the Device)."
EBay, ever
anxious to up profits, bends over backward to provide data to law enforcement
officials. "I don't know another Web site that has a privacy policy as
flexible as eBay's," says Joseph Sullivan, Senior Director of Law
Enforcement Relations. "We don't make you show a subpoena, except in
exceptional cases," Sullivan told his listeners. "When someone uses
our site and clicks on the `I Agree' button, it is as if he agrees to let us
submit all of his data to the legal authorities. Every move an Ebay user makes;
clicks, purchases, emails, leaving feedback; is all recorded. And given freely
to Law Enforcement upon asking.
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