New Unofficial Agents: Google, Facebook, and other tech companies?

Recently I read an article (or more like a Forbes' blog post) on how tech companies are becoming a secretive (not that secretive, but in terms of what they do) and unofficial government agents.  As social networking increases, there will be a better and higher chance for government agencies to intervene with tech companies. According to U.S government, sometimes these companies have to follow Federal inspections, that means that they take advantage for such inspections to request users information. The United States is not the only company that is increasingly taking advantage of this. We have an example of Yahoo and the Chinese government. Yahoo helped the Chinese government to arrest certain individuals that were considered a "threat" to the country.
Forbes' link:
http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2011/04/11/are-tech-companies-becoming-unofficial-intelligence-agents/?partner=fbwall

And still afraid of Google?

http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2011/04/05/how-did-epsilon-expose-your-email-address-to-hackers/?partner=fbwall
A company that no one has never heard before has been breached by hackers. The problem with this company that goes by the name of Epsilon, is that it provides services to many corporations such as Citibank or top 10 Forbes companies. Epsilon holds information of millions of Americans and yet people think that Google is too much. It was only names and emails that were exposed, but this tells us that hackers are capable to breach at almost every company.

Google: A Big Brother-monopoly relationship

      Last week I posted a link how Microsoft is now accusing Google of monopoly. Every time I think of monopoly I just think about the game. Well, however, the whole deal people are afraid of Google becoming a huge monopoly (since it has control over the internet now) is because they're afraid of being watched by Big Brother. Uncle Sam is watching everyone and thanks to Google, Big Brother is actually watching you and knows what you're doing and what you're planning to do.
      The question that got me thinking though is, do federal laws really want to launch an antitrust probe into Google's dominance of the internet? They needed, and they know they actually do needed more than anything else now; nevertheless, Google decreases competition and is becoming a powerful search engine monopoly. Not even Yahoo nor Bing can compete against the almighty Google. If Google is becoming a "private" Big Brother instead of being run by the government, then the government should instead create a type of relationship that could help balance Google's monopoly and the federal government's "all-seeing eye."
    Google right now is like the Roman Empire. Little by Little is taking over everything, and unlike the Roman Empire, their vision for the future is greater than anything else. Today, Google is everything for us. Maybe in the future it will become everything that we need. From their inventions of creating cars without the need for the drivers to using their technology for more than just smartphones. I guess this is the fear Microsoft is having now since Google announced more than a year ago the release of their own operating system.
 All I have to say is c'est la vie in the world of becoming the world's number one company.

Google and government requests

http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/

Not only the United States asks Google for users information, but as the link shows, there is a list of how many countries have done it so.

Microsoft attacks Google as a Monopoly

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/03/microsofts-antitrust-argument-and-after/36237/
Recently Microsoft has decided to turn the tables and attack Google as a monopoly. The reason for this comes after the European Union Commission blame Microsoft for the same reasons. I guess no one in the corporate world likes to lose and they tend to point the finger at those who can become a future threat to their corporate world. Microsoft recently is losing their competition against corporations such as Apple and Google in terms of advancement.

Google WiFi Going to Kansas City and other ideas

Recently, we discussed in class how Google introduced WiFi to the area of San Francisco. Nothing is free in this country and the only purpose of Google was to promote their advertising marketing for their own profit. How were they going to profit from this? Allowing local businesses to advertise is the whole new market idealism on the internet. Yet, Google is thinking to expand this idea to other areas that are worth it to their company. I don't think Kansas City is a big of a place, but is all about sponsorship. Following Tuesday's class, sponsorship is another way to promote a company's brand to consumers. This is not a new strategy but an old one. Is the whole idea of capitalism. How necessary is this type of marketing? In a world where the United States has become a modern type of empire, we have military places in every continent of the world. However, this is not the only way to promote our imperialistic ideas to the world as acting as the World's Police or the Savior of the World that comes to promote democracy.
     Furthermore, this new modernize world wants something different: capitalism. Maybe not the entire idea of capitalism, but a type of mix economy where private corporations give what the consumers want. Many have stopped relying on the government for help, but their reliance has moved towards these companies that give billions to charities. The Bill Gates Foundation is an example of former CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates, to invest his entire wealth on new science and technology to help developing countries to combat poverty and diseases. In the end, the person who will be profiting from this is going to be Bill Gates. I won't deny this strategy works, it works perfectly well. I received a Microsoft Scholarship not too long ago together with a laptop and $8,000 for my tuition. This scholarship not only made me happy, but I felt like Microsoft was my savior at that moment. I just wanted to be part of Team Microsoft and not Apple. Since then, I bought a new laptop, and guess what? It was a Microsoft Windows laptop. What I'm trying to emphasize is that our government promotes democracy through military and we see private U.S corporations promoting our economic system through all of their charity work and sponsorship.
Obviously since the death of the Soviet communism, the two optional economic system was brought just to one.  As of now, it has worked well for many developing nations. Nevertheless, the government has to come to an agreement to try to separate themselves from the economy (except in the case of China into some extent).
Movements.org is not only a not-for-profit organization that is trying to change the political landscape through new technology in areas where our nation has an interest of being there. Going back to the whole idea of Google expanding their free WiFi to different U.S cities, let's remember that Google already might have plans to expand these ideas to other areas around the world. Even though private corporations tend to help combat certain issues having their own interest in mind, it always becomes an unstoppable cycle. Many people are suffering because of this capitalist system, and private industries try to show the other side of the coin by saying they care, which in certain cases they do help, but not completely.  This is another way to promote capitalist ideas to the world.

March 24 Class

• government uses fear for capitalism
• Fear of being used as a marketing strategy and move people towards self-surveillance. 
• Politicians are listening to what we want, but they change their message toward us and they won't change their policy
• Their policy still remains the predetermined interest
• They still trying to target their message subliminally to the audience. 
• This becomes anti-democratic
•  Government creating fear over people by wiretapping their phones (China is a perfect example)
• China wiretaps the phones and use some type of algorithm in order to maintain fear over their people or prevent any protests against the government. If a certain person says a few words repeatedly that becomes a threat to their government, their phones are completely shut down. 

  Companies that install security systems in a house many times try to create an advertisement that creates fear over people. Such fear then drives people to buy such security systems which gathers data that is collected by these companies.  I do agree with Andrejevic with such ideas because this is more or less a profitable war. From Boeing and Lockheed Martin making billions by creating military jets to private corporations installing surveillance cameras within their range and making millions out of it, we have become a nation where Uncle Sam is actually watching us everywhere. Even Google has the street view software within their webpage.