I found this article today and thought it was interesting and relevant given some of the class discussions we have had regarding the privacy and data in class. I found particularly interesting that the author felt strongly enough about the dangers of Google to "break up with it" but offered up a defense of Apple. Her reasoning being, "Of course, Apple collects user information as well. But it is not the company's main source of revenue. Apple users pay for their products in dollars, not in personal information. Its closed system of products and devices, while decried among tech pundits, is its advantage. Apple also has a long history of treating its users not like products, but like consumers. This incentivizes improvements that put the user first, giving us a more powerful voice. After all, we can vote with our dollars and with our downloads." Do we buy this? To what degree are the points she makes accurate?

I also wished she had discussed more what alternatives she now uses for all the services that Google provided- she briefly talked about finding new search engines but I would be interested in a "how-to" manual of sorts in structuring our lives without the harmful technologies we have been discussing. It is encouraging to read that someone has deleted Google from their lives but it is still overwhelming imagining how to do it for oneself.

-- ElviraKras - 08 Oct 2012