face the book

Much of the computing press (DE/EN) has looked to this day, when the coordination and communication among the ancillary services of a major internet search engine is allowed free congress and is no longer compart-mentalized among the respective services, with great trepidation, as if, untimely, like a baby at the ball, the internet would vomit out, inopportune and indiscrete, every single embarrassing thing that one has done on the internet and inexorably link it to everything one does henceforth. I think those fears are magnified, latent insecurities over the Pandora's Box of convenience and connectivity that can't be put back in the bottle. Vigilance and education about privacy issues and abuse is very important if we are to prevent the drift of nosiness and full, involuntary disclosure, but, given that a rival social network was discovered to have slandered the major search engine by promoting exaggerated and false stories in the press about its competitors' policies, mostly to deflect from its own unsavoury and prying practices. I wonder if the bigger prize is not merely the users' data but rather sewing distrust.