THE INTERNET WAR: 'Ask' Won't Tell

[We've all heard about the threats the vast series of tubes called The Internet faces on a daily basis. For the most part we don't understand them. After all, isn't 'Neutrality' reserved for those Swiss pansies? In the tradition of Marshall McLuhan and the "X-Files", this semi-irregular segment probes threats to the internet. More importantly we will underline how unstoppable The Internet is in...THE INTERNET WAR!]

It has been a while, fellow revolutionaries, since I have commented on the State of the Revolution. This is hardly due to a lack of material (the talking heads of the Reactionaries and the Doubters will gab and gab) but our faith in the Glorious Netscape Revolution of 1995 has held firm. The Vanguard of the Revolution has been under attack. Google, say the Reactionaries, is 'bottoms' when it comes to privacy. The company has come under fire for keeping searches tucked away in a supercomputer--a supercomputer that kind of looks like that room at the end of Raiders of the Last Ark. It seems Privacy International (or Privintern) fails to realize that the Internet is not about 'privacy'.

'Privacy' is a pitiful notion whose heyday was before the Glorious Revolution of 1995. The Internet is about communication, breaking down the walls that restrict information and letting these autonomous abstractions roam wherever they may. Except if that information is music and it roams into onto the hard-drive of a 14 year old girl. But if it roams into the hands of a potential employer, that's the Glorious Tubes @ Work. There is no reason to feel any shame about your Jell-O fighting past, in fact, you were good at it . If your employer can't appreciate that, well then, they can't appreciate you. It would've been a great Christmas Party. Everyone seems so worried about 'THE MAN' finding out their personal information. There is no MAN. It's just us, Revolutionaries, running the world from the blue light of a computer screen.

The only thing more frightening for the Privacy Junkies, more than keeping their Truth from their potential employers, is keeping it from Corporations Who Sell Things and Advertise.

No revolutionary abstraction has gotten as much heat for this as 'facebook' (NO! I WILL NOT CAPITALIZE, I WILL SPELL HOW THE CAPITALISTS TELL ME TO!) facebook is a social networking site where people post their information for all to see. But it is not simply a way for Torontonians to wear badges of civic-action through group-joining. What's the difference between you showing everyone in the world 'Where You've Been' and the guy who wrote that application selling that high-quality information that would otherwise cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for a market research firm to collect to Expedia, Travelocity, and Priceline?

It looks like the only people who should be pissed are market-research companies. The Internet is creating the climate for Perfect Information that makes Markets efficient. Finally everyone's most base and suppressed desire will be known to The Supplier who can create the perfect Jell-O fighting vacation to the Yucatan peninsula you never knew you wanted, until The Internet made it all possible through AGGREGATION.

KNOW THY SELF? Never better than The Internet knows you.

But! Ask.com, a paltry revolutionary compared to the Vanguard-Google, says no that outdated 20th Century notion that 'privacy' is worth something. 'We will protect your privacy.' says Ask.com. They have already posed as the Vanguard before, now they reveal their true REACTIONARY COLOURS by trying to revive archaic 'privacy'. AskEraser? What are they trying to 'erase'? The Revolution, that's what!

We will not let them! Crush the revisionists! Long Live The Revolution! One! Nine! Nine! Five!