Getting Back Control - The Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights

 

With today's social media trend spreading like wildfire we get so caught up trying to stay "in the know", posting our latest tweet and letting everyone know your having a bad day on Facebook,  that we forget all of our information is flying around out there on a "cloud" for anyone to see.  The web is a nightmare for those who want to remain private. With every search or click-clack of the keyboard you open yourself up for an array of spam, computer viruses, and yes the government. This year the Obama administration has decided to build a few safety nets for the consumers out there.

In Edward Wyatt's article, White House, Consumers in Mind, Offers Online Privacy Guidelines,  
President Obama was quoted as saying, “American consumers can’t wait any longer for clear rules of the road that ensure their personal information is safe online.”  A new set of rules have been proposed called the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. These rights will give us as the consumer more control over our privacy and force larger companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple, Amazon, Microsoft as well as others to become more open and transparent about what their actual privacy and security policies are. By making the policies easier to understand and more available to the consumer the government can then hold the companies responsible for sharing unauthorized information about it's consumers. Obama's administration has urged Congress in support of the legislation and wants to give the FTC and State Attorneys Generals additional powers to reinforce the bill. So far Google has taken the lead and their new policies will be in effect as of March 1, 2012. 
As of now the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights is voluntary and even if everyone complied this would not stop advertisers from gathering data from your Web browser history. I tell my kids and everyone else that asks, "if you search it, tag it, say it, or type it, your associated with it forever"  big brother truly is watching and now it's just a matter of what he does with what he sees.

Pew Research Center The News IQ Quiz - Surprising Results

For my first blog I decided to take the current events quiz. I surprised myself a bit. I guess it's true that when your immersed in something you are bound to pick up a few things along the way. I work for a public relations firm in the research department. My job sounds like I am right in the middle of things, but before you get too excited I have to follow it up by saying I am the assistant to some of the most amazing and well educated people I have ever met. I have always had very strong opinions on most subjects, religion, style etc. but never on politics. I like many others I know, can't hold a 3 second conversation on politics and government without either walking away bored or frustrated. I never liked government classes and I couldn't stand the idea of politicians as a kid, as an adult and now with my line of work I see way more than I should. I am force fed information on a daily basis some good and some not. 

My scores were as I said surprising. I scores a 12 out of 13 which was not the most surprising part, the scary part was I was only in line with about 9% of the population. That is frighting. Me, the person who can barely watch the news unless there is a fluff story to soften the blow, scored higher than 83% of the nation. Frighting, just frighting.

What I hope to get from this class is a bit more understanding of how things are suppose to work. Where our government went so wrong and why "we the people" has become less about the people and more about the bottom line. My political view, I am a Liberal Republican if that is even possible. I believe those that work and earn their money should be able to keep it. I believe we should want to give to the less fortunate not be forced into it. I believe in pro-life but maintain that every woman has the right to choose. I believe in a man and woman being married but hold that if you love someone it shouldn't matter, and I believe if my child wants to bow their head and pray in school or on the bus they have every right to. I am what my mother might call a fence walker, there is no black and white.