This article was written by Don VanSyckel, the club president, as a part of "The President's Pen". This article appeared in the October 2019 WYSIWYG newsletter.
Privacy
by Don VanSyckel
I have been told that all new cell phones have a GPS trackable feature that can't be turned off. There's good news and bad news in this. Good news in emergencies you can dial 911 and the system can report your location to emergency responder personnel. Bad news is the government can now track your every movement, when your phone is with you. Currently the government is mostly benign but things can change drastically and quickly, just investigate the platforms of some of the current national political candidates. The other abuse that can and has happened is someone in the system with an ax to grind, such as going through a divorce, in a neighborhood dispute, or in a legal dispute, can procure information about your movements and there by who you're contacting. Any system involving people has flaws. People being people are susceptible to people doing the wrong thing whether purposefully or accidentally.
Now consider that every time you Google something the Google company records your searches. Haven't you noticed all the advertisements for stuff you recently searched for? The other way Google manipulates you is in the presentation of search results. Not only does Google take money to put listings first in the returned list, it has been documented that Google also arranged search results in some cases (both order of results and leaving out some results) to support their ideological agenda. This is a very subtle thing since you sit in the comfort and security of your own home and have your private web activity tracked, recorded, and manipulated and you don't even know it's happening. So if you like being manipulated continue using Google. If you want to live free and untracked, consider using a different search engine such as DuckDuckGo or others that don't track and manipulate.
As you might have concluded from the above, I consider personal privacy a necessity if not a right; it's a part of being a free society and not just a member of a registered herd.
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