On Capital Hill, with a board of four people giving presentations, each speaker held a variant opinion about spyware. The one conclusion everyone agreed on is the importance of keeping an upbeat tone on the Internet.
Some of my personal experiences about spyware are intuitively based, but still obvious conclusions about who’s watching.
Not really a big consumer, I usually order retinol from a favorite drugstore online entity. For anyone who doesn’t know, retinol is the only proven cream that delays aging skin.
For about two months after the first retinol order, every time I opened my Yahoo email, there was a horrible picture of a woman who had so many wrinkles; she looked to be at least 200 years old.
Because of the grotesque and garish imagery, I gave this old woman the name of “Leach Woman.” It reminded me of an old horror movie by that name.
Leach Woman eventually went away, possibly because I only order the retinol once a year and my activities possibly didn’t merit the costs of a continued spyware program.
Privacy has become a big factor to consider in the rules of the road for the Internet as a whole.
Early on, I took advice about how to protect monetary activities and have never used a credit card in almost seven years of net presence. Keeping funds in Paypal, and operating from there is the best way to go. If I don’t have enough earnings, I can send Paypal a check via snail mail.
Though Paypal hasn’t been infallible, it has a reason to employ the best software to protect itself from invading spyware.
Image via CrunchBase
Handling business transactions this way keeps financial activities out of the loop. Transactions won’t have a completed pathway for statistics that spyware might be interested in following.
In an article submitted to a different writer’s site, I couldn’t help wanting to be sarcastic about how invasive spyware can really be. So, I made a comment referencing hemorrhoids. Before going ahead and submitting, I wanted to think about the tackiness of it, and left the article hanging in cue for a day or two.
Can you guess what’s already offered in my email, now? You guessed it – “Preparation H.” I got the “Preparation H” spam before the article was even published.
Soon after the meeting on Capital Hill, the Federal Trade Commission Chairman, Jon Leibowitz appeared on PBS television. Leibowitz made the remark that he is encouraging companies involved to keep spyware at bay.
He would like to see self monitoring. The unspoken part of his statement may have been “or else.”
With the FCC and the FTC getting involved with the internal workings of the internet, what can we expect? The most favorable answer would be, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Rants about spyware peeking at my unpublished article in the cue seem justifiable, but let’s keep everything upbeat and pleasant on the Internet, instead.
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