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RadioShack Stops Being Nosy
jackbang writes "One small but positive step in the gradual erosion of personal privacy and increase of corporate intrusiveness - RadioShack will no longer ask for your name and address when all you want to do is buy some batteries. Now if only they would agree to remove the motion sensor that rings a bell every time someone walks in or out of the store..." Always freaked me out being asked my address just to buy some solder or something.
No, that would be cause for joy. Nothing quite like the glow of that "Hot donuts now" sign after a nite of coding or Quakin'....
How hypocritical is it that Slashdot runs stories critical of RadioShack for asking information about their users (easily denied, by saying "No", or providing phony information), but forces its own users to register and provide a working email address, in order to post or moderate ?
The solicitation of email addresses by Slashdot is not excusable by reference to bots harvesting phony logins, or somesuch, because they have ANOTHER mechanism to do this (displaying images and asking users to type the text contained in the image).
This seems a classic case of the self-righteous pot calling the kettle black.
How fast will this get modded down, I wonder ?
This is the first year I've tried to make Christmas video "wish lists" with my camcorder. However, while minding my own business, following around perspective hard-to-shop for family members while they shop, I get accosted by store managers telling me to immediately stop. They say I am violating store copyright policy by filming products in their store. No mention of the fact that I could just buy the product in question and film it when I get home.
So the questions are:
1) Do we have the right to film whatever we want when we are in public?
2) Are we in public when we are in a store?
3) Can a company place restrictions on us filming them or their products when they film us all the time using their "security" video cameras? What rights do you have over your own countenance? If you own the rights to your face, does every company violate copyright by filming you on their "security" video system?
4) Do we "lose" all rights when we walk into a store? (Similar to losing all rights when we work for a company) If so, when someone says "well you could just go to another store/work for another company" is that bogus because all stores/companies are the same with regard to this?
5) Is this the same as believing one has a right to sit in a movie theater (a public place?) and film the movie one watches (clearly a copyright violation)?
6) Where do "Fair Use" laws come into this?
I hate to be a "but I have rights" stick-in-the-mud on this but... This is America... And we actually do have rights here... And corporations are in business to make money... And if they have to step all over our rights do do it I'm sure they wouldn't bat an eye over it...
What's the right way of thinking about this?