Who Wants High Speed Fiber Connections in PHX?

[keith smith]

--- On Fri, 2/12/10, Frank <francis.earl at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Frank <francis.earl at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Who Wants High Speed Fiber Connections in PHX?
> To: "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> Date: Friday, February 12, 2010, 1:01 AM
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 10:29 PM,
> Alan Dayley <alandd at consultpros.com>
> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 9:56 PM, Frank
> <francis.earl at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > It really isn't any
> different to ISP's knowledge of our online activities
> 
> > now... I think its actually better since Google is
> fully upfront about their
> 
> > access to our online activities!
> 
> > Privacy is important, but on the internet, we've
> never had it... I don't
> 
> > really understand the uproar directed at Google, if
> anything, its better
> 
> > that so much is stored in one place... the more there
> is, the harder it is
> 
> > to track unless they have good reason. If you're
> doing nothing illegal on
> 
> > the internet, I don't see why people worry?
> 
> 
> 
> If it were financially feasible to do so, it sounds
> like you would
> 
> have no problem with a having a police officer follow you
> and watch
> 
> you 24/7.  After all, you would not do anything illegal,
> right?
> 
> We already have cameras on us almost anywhere we
> go, FBI also can tap your phone for a wide variety of
> reasons. Your television habits are tracked too, else how do
> they get ratings? I don't see people stopping their use
> of phones and TV, or not going on freeways or to public
> places due to privacy? Internet privacy is very similar in
> many ways to both of these, unless we're doing something
> wrong, we know they're not singling us out.
> 
> Your statement even points this out, it simply
> isn't feasible to track and monitor everything each
> person does online, there is simply too much data! With it
> all going to one source, it makes this even less feasible.
> AdSense and friends use your data in certain algorithms, but
> there isn't an actual person taking time out of their
> day to see what news articles you read today or what you
> downloaded yesterday.
> 
> I understand most people are much more private
> than me, but I personally worry more about things like
> censorship compared to privacy... I simply don't have
> much to hide.
> -------------------------------

Censorship, loss of privacy, same side of the coin.  My original point was that Google is the biggest search engine.  It has been reported that they know all our Internet habits.  If they get into connectivity and they get a large market share they can selectively censor you.  If you are for gay rights and they are not they can simply add a few points to your ranking to move you to page 3, 4, 5.... instead of a natural page 1 ranking.  They can impact elections.  They can hide things that we need to know about while highlighting things that are not of importance.  They would have the power to put you out of business if you rely on the Internet for your leads. This becomes more of an issue with newspapers going bankrupt, and the Yellow Book going out of style, while people are turning more to the Internet for their information.

I'm not saying this is happening, however the potential is there.

Our founding Fathers gave us the Bill-of-Rights for a reason.  They lived through oppression and did not want it to happen in the "Several States" that is now the USA.