johnraff makes a good point; in the event that we live in a non-democratic nation, or in a democratic nation in name only, or in a democratic nation where certain government agencies or companies operate without oversight, (as has happened in the United States at some points in history,) what is to stop our personal information from being used in order to conduct illegal actions against us?
What is to stop such company-supplied information from being used to render an individual into a Third-World hell? Or to even assassinate them? Or to simply imprison them in their country under false charges?
Or even, as I believe is more common, to simply target them for advertisements, spam and non-national, criminally organized malware production and distribution?
The problem, as it exists in the situation being dealt with in this thread, is that ideally a company such as Google, indeed any company dealing in information, would realize that working with a despotic government such as the Chinese government is, morality and legality aside, is simply bad business.
It is bad business because you cannot trust the despot to uphold their side of the business deal, you cannot trust the despot not to use what you give/sell them against you either by itself or in an effort to clandestinely obtain information you haven't given/sold them, (for instance, if you encrypt the sold information in one way and they break that encryption to obtain information you have not sold them which is encrypted the same way,) etc.
Now, of course, that perfect world does not exist. The ideal situation isn't the actual situation. Companies like Google in fact do business regularly with despots, dictators, mass murdering a-holes, etc. And, of course, those bad people of the world don't even need to be in league with an information company, they don't need permission or official notice or anything of the sort.
-It is not hard to imagine that the life of a security cracker is a well-paid one.
So, what can we do? We can first of all not do business with any company which, no matter how honest and forthright and law-abiding they are in our countries, operates with the official sanction of despotic governments in the territory of said despotic governments.
This means, simply, stop using their services, stop investing in them and, the part 99.9% of people will bail on: daily, 365 1/4 days a year for the rest of our lives write letters to your elected officials, send them emails, make incessant phone calls to their offices and the offices of said companies and any companies which do business with them, (say, if Microsoft and Google came out with a joint product that they shared the profits from, or if they shared the user-supplied information,) and, essentially, do unpaid lobbying among your friends.
This will accomplish two things:
1) It will show how scummy these companies just really are to the world in press, radio, film, Internet and person;
2) It will apply pressure to these companies to stop the acts which make them such scumbags;
-Any politicians defending or indeed economically related to these companies should also be targeted in this NON-VIOLENT!!! campaign to expose the underworld of the Internet.
This should only be undertaken if you have evidence such companies, say Microsoft and Google, are using your information in any manner of which you have not been informed by said companies at the time you provide said information, including any manner which is not necessarily a threat to your safety or the safety of other human beings.
You have a right as a human and as a customer of these companies to know exactly what they are doing with the information you are providing them, including information which may not be used to identify you but instead is used to enhance the algorithmic processes of a search engine to provide accurate search results; i.e. information about how many times a given term has been entered into the search engine and how many resulting web pages are clicked on so that, in the future, the search engine provides results which are better tailored to your searches.
Now, what about another issue of information, namely identifying information about individuals, and such non-declared organizations as groups of friends on Facebook, for instance? This information includes name, physical address, mailing address, email address, birthplace, SS number, (in the United States, that is,) and also information which may not seem obvious to the average user of the Internet such as their IP address.
This is neither the forum nor the time to discuss the morality of using means, which may or may not be legal, to hide such information, such as ANY method of "faking," your IP address or providing false identifying information such as a fake name.
What if this information is collected clandestinely by any entity other than the entity offering the service which requires the input of such information? Is it then the fault of the company, such as Google, that they collect and, apparently, retain that information for a period of time which, apparently, they have arbitrarily decided the length of? (That is to say, a regulatory body has not, apparently, mandated that they destroy their collections of such information after a period of say, 3 years, and instead the company has probably decided they can make no use of it after a period of time.)
I believe that the described situation or any similar to it which results in the same or similarly negative outcome is their fault if they have not taken all possible steps, irregardless of cost so long as the company remains economically viable, to appropriately secure such information from outside attacks even if they have neither a history of providing such information to known or widely-suspected despots or criminals nor a stated, in either a private or public forum, intention of doing so either willingly or through neglect of the security of their information systems.
(A possible problem occurs with the private forum thing, say a board meeting of which there is no record; in this case I can only hope we have all done our part to uncover any criminal activities, past or present, and other unsavory and potentially dangerous aspects of the people in these companies who could do bad things with the technology of the companies; and that we have done our part to ensure the technology itself is not at fault.)
Now, this means we will need many people from different backgrounds developing anti-intrusion/anti-malware technology, including software, hardware and secure facility technology such as door locks and, potentially, biometric access systems, (the most modern, and not necessarily most expensive, of which cannot be fooled by synthetic fingerprints, etc.-although it should be noted that this is an ongoing arms race, so to speak-) and other people to regularly inspect said software, hardware and facilities to ensure compliance, modernity and upkeep.
We should also consider denying individuals and groups of individuals, especially elected officials and most especially those who seek to be involved in the aforementioned independent review groups, the permits or paperwork required by law, (or enacting such laws,) to start a company that in any way could have access to identifying information which have not in the past followed the regulations or have been convicted of criminally providing such information to any criminal entity without the providers knowledge and consent.
-We should inform these people why they are being denied the opportunity to start another such company and also provide government subsidies to help ensure regulation compliance, which in turn, hopefully, ensures the safety of your person and personal information.
Furthermore I will only say that I believe convicted rapists, child molesters and child pornographers, (including those who view child pornography,) as well as any criminals convicted of a serious crime, (for instance a felony or its' equivalent in your justice systems,) which they perpetrated with the help of computers or person-identifying information obtained with the use of computers, either by their own actions or from a third-party, should be forbidden from ever so much as using a computer again, including computers available to the public in libraries and colleges, etc. and from even so much as having an email address.
-A system should be put in place which allows these individuals, should they ever join the public again, (I will not elaborate on my thoughts on THAT subject, as I hold extreme and prejudiced views concerning the punishment of such individuals as a result of abuse suffered at the hands of a certain type of those individuals many years ago,) to function in society without an email address or access to computers.
Also, an organization should be created, perhaps multiple such organizations, to monitor those individuals in a minimally invasive manner; keep in mind that they are not being monitored because they were the best singers in the church choir.
EDITED BY AUTHOR FOR CLARITY AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS.
Last edited by Schadt91 (2010-07-13 07:11:16)
I think *that's* what was the most annoying thing. I do realize terms of services and online agreements can change at any time but for something like this, maybe a courtesy heads-up would have been nice. 
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