Freedom 101:
IT security is directly related to useability. Increases in useability results in decreased security, increased security results in decreased useability.
On any user interface (Interface between a system or computer and an average user) if their are more choices, navigational difficulty level is higher.
Similarly, increased choice and freedom results in decreased usability and a reverse increase in resource requirements. (If you have more options to choose from there are more services or more variables resulting in greater resource requirements)
Some multinational companies affect your very existence and they have no direct understanding of what that means. Google is becoming an evil company. Not because the staff, culture or company is evil but because they have become that which they set out not to become. They have evolved into what they once opposed.
Today I opened Google.com and was immediately redirected to Google.co.za, complete with options of offering service to me in a number of regional languages and instantly forcing me to search the entire Internet within a limited or reduced scope.
Google is reducing the amount of freedom and choice by attempting to increase the amount of ease (useability) and speed of search delivery (effectiveness). of course less resources required for each search means less energy consumption, higher operating margins and increased profits.
So, when wishing to see the state of the average sheep one has to examine the quality of search results and the average sheep is very obviously on the decline. This simple steady decline means less freedom in the future.
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On a side note, regarding Google: The reduced search freedom is not the only event. Google is also starting to regulate culture, communities and deciding moral values and encroaching into every space of human freedom.
It is a fact that Google decided not to allow the sale of guns online. Don’t get me wrong, I have no guns, not even one and I believe the sale of guns should be illegal to anyone on the planet. I am merrily quoting it as an easy low hanging fruit, there are millions of other examples more challenging to present.
Who gives Google the moral authority to decide what is right for everyone?
Answer: Google thinks it is a huge and powerful media, content and news creating multi billion us$ company. Google knows it has the power to destroy anyone and any company on the planet. Not by doing anything but by simply not doing something and even doing so in a way that will never result in any scrutiny. (When a very small seedling is refused water it dies. Just be sure to kill all the correct small seedlings and you will be just fine.) That gives it the right to be the moral authority.
Google decided that Amazon could be a threat so they launched Nexus 7. Yes, sure Google makes Android available as open source so that Amazon could compete against Google, I mean Apple, Facebook and so many other more evil companies would never even think about acting so non evil. Why is Google creating the option for Microsoft and Samsung to merge? Does the planet need three very large multinationals in the same space and what about the micro players?
Google surely had to ask itself where the lines are and it clearly has done so and now it is forcing the lines down our throats. Fortunately it is done insidiously, slowly, sublimely and as the staffers at Google believes in what they are doing and there are hundreds of millions of sheep, it is easier to just be.
