Comment by rectang
8 years ago
This tracking abomination is an emergent phenomenon of the merger of private industry and government in the US. See for example both legalized bribery (a.k.a. unlimited campaign contributions by corporations thanks to Citizens United) and outright bribery (Cohen) by telecoms like AT&T, ensuring that they will have the flexibility to perpetrate such garbage as this tracking data sale.
Why not distrust both government and industry? The rule "power corrupts" holds in either case.
Are you saying AT&T bribed Cohen in order to have the Justice Dept. sue AT&T over its acquisition with Time Warner?
I'm saying AT&T bribed Cohen, which is what we have evidence for so far. Perhaps there will be additional communiques exposed later which reveal specific requests.
They did not get the outcome they wanted with the acquisition, but there was also the matter of the administration wanting to punish CNN. Maybe AT&T should have paid more.
But AT&T has still done remarkably well vis a vis the FCC's selective deregulation of net neutrality, which makes it much easier for existing ISPs to leverage their quasi-monopolies and compete unfairly within other verticals.
The American system of legalized bribery needn't produce a bill of sale for regulatory capture.
Alright, but distrusting all parties doesn't suggest a way forward.
Why not? Both government and private industry bring innumerable benefits to humanity. But we can and should view them both with constant skepticism and exercise vigilance. Why should holding one accountable mean that we can't hold the other accountable?
If you're looking for someone to root for, I'd suggest the individual citizen.
The individual citizen has practically no power against large institutional actors.
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