Tuesday 5 October 2010

PRIVACY ISSUES

If I’d taken up all the penis enlargement offers I’ve had emailed to me over the years, I could square off at a duel, using my penis as a lance. With The Terminator as my opponent.

That’s how big it would be. Or more precisely, that’s how many times I’ve been offered enlargements which would equate to how big it would be.

Pity of it all, of course, is that I’m a girl. And I don’t have a penis. (Nor do I particularly want one, but that is a theme for a future blog.)

About once a week, minimum, I am politely advised that I have a critical parcel collection awaiting my attention. This is from the good folk at United Postal Services in the USA. I always find it odd that my parcel is located somewhere in the USA mid-west and I’m domiciled somewhere in the middle of Australia’s east coast. But perhaps I worry about detail too much.

I am too polite to reveal information about the status and content of my sex life, but needless to say, there are those out there who vehemently believe I need large, regular doses of Viagra. Who have they been talking to?

Oh, and if I want to quit working in marketing, I can simply hand over my credit card and get an instant diploma, making me an accountant, or a vet, or a politician.

Which means that the mobs that send these emails have a less than average marketing department. And a zero budget for market research.

Which got me to thinking about privacy, and why we need to hide behind anonymous emails and social networks. And mentioned in one of the famous rants of bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change, Seth Godin.

Imagine there is no longer access to free emails. No hotmail, gmail or yahoo. What if you had to pay a fee to have that email account, say even just $1 a month. Would that halt this escalating abuse of the wonderful tool that is the world wide web?

How about a fee of $20 for every email you send that violates anti-spam regulations that these email hosts wold enforce. Mmm, maybe then you’d have to actually visit a doctor and get your Viagra prescription in the safe way, meaning that it would be after a physical check-up.

Better still, you would need to provide formal identification when you were signing up for an email account.

Ouch! Would that just be making us honest and transparent?

Why do we need the avenues to be able to contact people anonymously? Are we trying to sell them something? Then you should be making yourself visible. Are we trying to sell something illegal or harmful? Then you should never be allowed access to vehicles that enable your destructive path. You should just go straight to jail. Do not pass go. Forget the $200. You’re screwed buster.

And maybe, just maybe, it might put an end to that hateful little practice of cyber bullying. Or meeting people through internet dating sites, only to find that the Brad Pitt you were chatting with online was really more akin to Frank from Everyone Loves Raymond.

I’d pay a fee, that’s for sure. Because I don’t have anything to hide.

2 comments:

  1. Oh if it were only that simple...

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  2. Hey Bron, luv ur article. Doubtless, it is a shame that a medium such as the Internet is misused in such a pervasively bad way, and that some controls and restrictions on access eg. to child porn are, in my view too, desirable; and that's apart from all the spam garbage and spams we're assaulted by on a daily basis. :-)

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