Here Comes The Government

Back in December I wrote a piece for Adweek called Big Brother Has Arrived, and He's Us. In the article I talked about the dangers of tracking on the internet.

"There’s no reasonable way that this is a good development for a free society. There is no realistic vision of the future in which this will not lead to appalling mischief.

It’s time for us to say no. It’s time to put aside our petty self-interest, take a step back and see where this is leading. We need to stop tracking people and their behavior now."

Of course, this will never occur. There is way too much money being made on digital advertising for anyone to act responsibly.

So inevitably what happens in circumstances like this is that the heavy hand of government steps in to regulate. The San Francisco Chronicle reported last week that...

"...legislation (that) would call on the California attorney general to force affected businesses to provide users a way to avoid having their personal information and online activity tracked..." was being introduced into the state legislature.

According to the 4A's...

"...the Judiciary Committee of the California State Senate has tentatively scheduled a hearing on April 26 to consider a new proposal... which seeks to become the country’s first do-not-track consumer privacy law."

There is an outrageous amount of personal data being collected. It is too accessible, and anyone who takes promises of internet privacy and security seriously is an idiot.

But you can bet by time the knuckleheads in government are finished with this, the regulations they enact will be way more daunting than if the greedy bastards in the industry had just acted sensibly and responsibly in the first place.

Clowns to the left of me,  jokers to the right...