Posted by
ML Smith on Monday, June 29, 2009 3:29:34 PM
"Daddy, who owns Google?"
They said they would bring us to our knees; that the real threat would come from within.
Are we ready?
Ask yourself this; where is America most vulnerable? Chances are good that you'll say "the Infrastructure." Now, since your brain is very much like a computer, what might you see in its dropdown menu for Infrastructure. You'll see education, transportation, renovation, health care...but there is another that stands out from the crowd - an entity without which there would be nothing in that dropdown - the Internet. Why? America, unlike other countries, has every conceivable bit of data online. As I write this, hackers are penetrating weak links in the fence, (the firewall that supposedly protects our most sensitive data) An internet blackout would paralyze the nation.
Who controls the Internet? The FTC? The FBI? Homeland Security? Well here is a dropdown list that has gone untouched, with little monitoring and supervision from the federal agencies I listed.
1. Mail fraud
2. Identity theft
3. Hacker access to classified data, including defense systems, weapons technology, military deployment and transmission of inter agency communications, to name a few.
Who is in charge here? No one? We can't have that so by default, the most powerful force on the net practically owns it and they call the shots. There was a time when the Internet was an information and knowledge sharing entity. That has changed. The boss wants something else...money. Result? The Internet and the vital information it protects is in the hands of an organization with a rap sheet longer than Al Capone's. Allow me to list for you some of the highlights.
1. Class action lawsuit brought by Author's Guild for breach of booksearch agreements. $ at stake: billions
2. Class action lawsuit in Texas - theft of trademarks for profit
3. Class action lawsuit filed 5/15/09 by FPX for trademark infringement
4. Multiple copyright infringement class actions
5. Already nailed for $90 million settlement with private sector vendor
6. Class action lawsuit - defrauding advertisers with inflated reader "hits."
7. Another class action suit for trademarked keyword fraud
So who is the perp? Google. That's right...Google. If you have ever had your e-mail address stolen and you do your homework, you'll find that your address is being used to deliver bulk spam, act on vendettas, intimidate and censor. Nearly 70% of my mail is fraudulent. Who delivers it? Google. Bad news, but it could be worse. Who really owns Google?