Privacy groups vow to fight Microsoft-Yahoo deal
exerpt:
But a consolidating online market means users will have their data held by a small number of companies, said Professor Joseph Turow, at University of Pennsylvania school of communication.
“Microsoft’s decision to buy Yahoo is a direct result of the decision by the FTC to allow Google to purchase DoubleClick,” he said. “It is further evidence that despite the appearance of unlimited choice in the new media environment, people’s activities will be tracked and shaped by a very small number of companies who care far more about surveillance and targeted advertising than the public interest.”
The public needs to demand privacy scrutiny in the proposed deal, he said. “The federal government, which should have been the guardian of the public interest, has dropped the ball.”
Yes, I agree, duopolies are not the best idea in the world.
US or Them
Good or Evil
Chocolate or Vanilla
Coke or Pepsi
Democrat or Republican
Hillary or Obama
I like rock/paper/scissors scenarios much better, thanks just the same…
Oh, but then there wouldn’t be a clear winner. Exactly. Because, we know who the loser is going to be, don’t we? The public.
Conspiracy theories are an attempt to grasp the “big picture” of history. “We believe that many of the major world events that are shaping destinies occur because somebody or somebodies have planned them that way,” mused conservative author Gary Allen. “If we were merely dealing with the law of averages, half of the events affecting our nation’s well-being should be good for America. If we were dealing with mere incompetence, our leaders should occasionally make a mistake in our favor. . . . We are not really dealing with coincidence or stupidity, but with planning and brilliance.”
Jim Marrs, Rule By Secrecy (recommended- instead of needing to read tons of pre 9/11 conspiracy theory books, you can get the citations and quotes from Marrs). Whether or not you believe everything in the book is not important. Here are the source notes- just for non standard reference material, mind you. Question- would you rather read all those source, a single book (Rule By Secrecy) or not think about such things at all?
In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called “alarmist” for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly. In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote “in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media” — controlling almost all of America’s newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. He predicted then that eventually this number would fall to about half a dozen companies. This was greeted with skepticism at the time. When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world’s largest media corporation.
In 2004, Bagdikian’s revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations — Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) — now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric’s NBC is a close sixth.
image and quoted text source- Media Reform Information Center
more recent information-
Time Warner (mustn’t forget AOL, tch, tch), Walt Disney, News Corp., Viacom (mustn’t forget their merger with CBS, tch, tch) a Sony & Bertelsmann (image of Bertelsmann holdings) 50-50 merger on the music scene, GE/NBC and Microsoft/Yahoo! or Google for the net (or AOL, whatEVER)what, me worry?
Tags: duopolies, media, mergers, Microsoft, monopolies, privacy, Rule By Secrecy, Yahoo
