I’m really glad to see Kim take a stand on this. It seems that in the past, she has reported this stuff, but hasn’t really gone far enough to express her outrage or that the government’s actions are clearly unConstitutional (and clearly illegal). I’m glad to see her be so tact in her presentation. Yay, Kim!

Facebook to Share Your Info for Money
MINNEAPOLIS – Facebook is now sharing your personal profile information with third parties. For now, it’s just a few web sites, like the music site Pandora, and the consumer review site, Yelp.

Facebook is automatically sharing that information, without your consent. If you don’t want to share, you have to opt out… [and it's a complicated process to do so]…

Facebook want to make money by selling user information.

Last week, Facebook announced new features designed to unlock more of the data accumulated about its users during its six-year history. The senators said the recent changes by Facebook fundamentally alter the relationship between users and the social networking site. Before the change, users had control over what information they wished to share publicly and what information they wanted to keep private.

Loads of folks were up in arms about grocery stores storing user information. And people were outraged with Google’s Buzzle and with all the other crap we have to endure from so many companies who see our birthdays and Social Security numbers like fatted calves. But Facebook has 600 million users and it seems to be growing. I’ve had some advertisers who required that I sign up with Facebook to “favorite” them (or whatever it’s called) in order to get paid. I tried Facebook for a while, but quit after hearing about the first time the Facebook freaks wanted to store and sell my info. No thanks.

There’s something wrong when a faceless company can harvest OUR data and make scads of money off of us… and so few people seem to care. :huh: I don’t get it.

The United States has a lot of problems, but hey, at least we have that wonderful thing called the Fourth Amendment.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I’m not too terribly convinced that the U.S. government abides by it, though. But at least we do HAVE it.

Far as I know, there’s nothing like it in the United Kingdom, is there? Which is why it is so easy for the wicked government there to do things like this:

State to ‘spy’ on every phone call, email and web search
Every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens is to be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies.

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.

Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.

Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a single government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns.

However the Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately held “Big Brother” databases that opposition leaders said amounted to “state-spying” and a form of “covert surveillance” on the public.

It is doing so despite its own consultation showing that it has little public support.

Yow! And please don’t any trolls come here and complain, “Well, you have nothing to worry about if you aren’t doing anything wrong.” That reason is so inept and milquetoast that it makes minds meld into scrambled eggs when hearing it. It doesn’t MATTER if you are doing nothing wrong. It is the PRINCIPLE of the matter. We have the right– the God-given right as endowed by our Creator– to be secure in our persons and personal effects. Government has NO RIGHT to spy on us, especially when there is nothing for which to suspect us.

Is it any wonder that George Orwell was from Britain?

Firstly, the 86-page bill is here (it’s a pdf file). The bill makes a big deal about the reliability and needed oversight of “new media” (that’s us, fellow bloggers) when it comes to truth in advertising laws. Now, I will state that I am JUST FINE with truth in advertising– I have no problem with that. Rather, these are some of the issues I have with this FTC bill:

1. Blogs are OPINION forums.
The FTC desires to regulate opinions?! What will happen if one of my opinions is considered “wrong” or “misleading” by someone who has other opinions? Will I be targeted, simply because I have a blog?

2. I OWN my blogs. It’s MY private property.
This is a lot different than that “store clerk” parable that is being thrown around these days:

“If you walk into a department store, you know the (sales) clerk is a clerk,” said Rich Cleland, assistant director in the FTC’s division of advertising practices. “Online, if you think that somebody is providing you with independent advice and … they have an economic motive for what they’re saying, that’s information a consumer should know.”

The guidelines also would bring uniformity to a community that has shunned that.

This is a horribly poor allegory for sponsored posts on blogs. I OWN my blogs, I am an independent contractor, and this is MY space. A more appropriate allegory would be that of celebrity endorsement. We’ve all seen them, ever since I Love Lucy or The Honeymooners. How about Kim Komando and her GoToMyPC.com? Laura Ingraham and her Select Sleep Number Bed? Rush Limbaugh and his new GM SUV? Will they be required to hoist large placards over their heads, informing addle-brained consumers that their endorsement or product name-drop is sponsored? No! And how about movie makers with their “paid for” insertions of products and product names in movies (remember E.T.’s Reese’s Pieces?)! The movie makers get paid BIG bucks for dropping brand-names into their films. Do you think the Feds are going after them? NO!

But bloggers, who earn a measly $5-8 per sponsored post will have to do it– or be SUED or JAILED by the Feds! It’s unconscionable.

3. This bill, if passed into law, is unenforceable.
Here’s an example: on this blog, I write product reviews. Probably 80% of the product reviews I do on this blog are MY OWN. I don’t get paid for them. I just love doing product reviews. It’s WHY my blog is called, uh, Freaky FRUGALite. I have a readership of educated, frugal moms and dads, and this is why I write about what I do. DUH!! Is the FTC going to sue me for this post about trying out Walborn Immune System Defense? I liked it and it seemed to protect me from the colds that everyone was getting. What am I to do if some addled-brained idiot buys the stuff and gets a cold?? And how can I prove that I was never paid to write about Walborn– how on earth can I prove a negative?! I’m doing it for ME and for my readers– it’s part information and part entertainment, and the American people aren’t SO stupid so as to believe otherwise. 4. SEPS vs SEDS: I think there should be “Stupid Laws” on the books.
If you read a blog post about how a vitamin is going to make you fly like Superman, and you buy that vitamin believing that you can now fly like Supermen, then YOU should be sued, for being such a stupid idiot! I think it’s high time SMART, Enterprising People (SEPS) had some defending here, against the Stupid, Easily-Duped People (SEDS). The SEDS have been pandered too and coddled for tooo long. It’s about time they reaped some consequences here.

5. Next thing you know, we’ll have to have a Fairness Doctrine for blogs….!
Yeah, this is such a slippery slope! The Feds could tighten the screws, forcing us bloggers to abide by the idiotic Fairness Doctrine. Next thing you know, I won’t be able to write about Hoover vacuum cleaners unless I am “fair” and also write about Dyson vacs in the same sentence! All in the name of “fairness”! GRRRRRR!

6. Bloggers are independent thinkers, and we don’t want government-sponsored “uniformity.”
In the REAL world, that kind of uniformity is called “SLAVERY.” It’s called DEATH TO FREE ENTERPRISE, to CREATIVITY and to INNOVATION.

Finally, I like what John Dvorak had to say about this. (He’s a blogger, by the way, and he did not PAY ME to say this- happy now, FTC?):

This is like the government, in cahoots with the RIAA, going after some mom in Ohio for stupidly leaving Kazaa running on her machine and discovering she’s been a transit point for the “Best of Bee Gee’s” for the past two years. Meanwhile, the Asian mobs off the Indonesian coast are cranking out commercial counterfeit CDs by the millions. Do something about that first before you go after the oh-so-dangerous mom in Ohio.

The same holds true here. I could care less that Milly the Yarn Spinner at millysworldofyarn.com is getting free samples of yarn to review on her blog. Has she disclosed it was free yarn? Will she return the sweaters she knits from the yarn? Who cares?

We do not need the FTC looking into Milly when there are large corporations ripping off the public every day. The community of bloggers can make Milly miserable for her misleading review, but the public can do little about financial scams, major price fixing, overbilling by the phone companies, or any number of big scams. Where is the FTC?

Because the FTC so willfully ignores the obvious, most eggregious lawbreakers, and because they are instead turning their attentions to the Little Guy and the Mom Blogger, I find this bill very suspicious. It makes me really, really wonder about who is “sponsoring” this bill… where’s the FTC’s truth in advertising, huh? Who are the people pushing for this regulation?

I thought it was perfect timing especially after reading that Google is starting a new program within Gmail to “help” us.

Google has adapted its free email service to help those letting loose after a few evening cocktails or succumbing to lovelorn moments from firing off messages they might regret in the morning.

Mail Goggles software comes to life after dark and on weekends, when altered states of mind are more probable, and requires that five simple math problems be answered correctly in less than a minute in order to send a Gmail missive.

“Sometimes I send messages I shouldn’t send,” Gmail engineer Jon Perlow wrote Monday in a website posting announcing the optional new feature.

“Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together.”

Gmail users can adjust their email settings to activate the Goggles feature and dictate the times it is active.

“It will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email,” Perlow wrote.

“And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?”

They really, really think we are a bunch of slathering, blathering idiots, don’t they?