The problem with Google is that they are publishing the photographs, for the public, and making a profit - without anyone's permission.
I'll grant that the assumption of the supermarket that a customer is Jewish based on purchases is rather odd, but what's most odd about that, to me, is that the conclusion would be drawn. Presumably it works out for the company statistically somehow... but it's still puzzling why that would be. But if the (uncredited) author of that article doesn't want the grocery store keeping track of his purchases, she can simply stop using a payment method or discount card that allows the store to keep track of her identity. People have choices all the time, though it's easy to complain about ones apparent situation when one refuses to consider other options.
Well the author was taking the whole thing rather whimsically. What you're saying is that if we don't want to be monitored we should
opt out. We shouldn't receive the benefits of those persons who allow themselves to be monitored - when in fact, in a liberal and democratic society our privacy should be guaranteed by law, and the protection of our privacy should disadvantage us in no way.
Aethers, George wasn't saying the present invasion of our privacy is totalitarian. It's not 'over the top' to imagine how a totalitarian government might use the technology that has sprang up in the last five or ten years. It wouldn't be
nice.
Darvian wrote:If your name hits my desk as an applicant the first thing I do is google you up. I might find your ex-girlfriend/boyfriend's blog where he/she makes up all sorts of lies about you that could in my judgment make you not worth hiring. Guess what? That's my right to do and quite oddly you have no legal recourse to the potentially libelous or flatly false information published about yourself online.
Well, I don't know about your country, but we do in Great Britain. Regardless of slander/libel, there is defamation of character, which applies to anything written or spoken about another person. Which would apply in this case, I imagine.
As far as the store monitoring information on customers, that is nothing new at all. They do it for inventory purposes. No big brother conspiracy to be found here sadly. Call it unfair if you want or an invasion your privacy. Though I bet if stores quit tracking sales of products eventually you'd show up at your local store to buy something you fancy and find it's out. . .
True, collecting information on people is 'nothing new at all'. We did it first with the Domesday Book. The collection of information is not the problem, it's the
use of that information and potential for misuse. In the case of the article, it certainly wasn't for fucking 'inventory purposes'.
The word atheist is extremely narrow-sighted as it is. By definition everyone on the planet is an atheist.
So everyone on the planet actively denies the existence of God? Wtf.
George, why were you talking about atheists anyway?