Microsoft Tracking Behavior of Newsgroup Posters

theodp writes "Ever get the feeling your Usenet newsgroup list is being watched? By Microsoft? If so, consider yourself right. An interesting but troubling CNET interview with Microsoft's in-house sociologist goes into how the software giant is keeping a close eye on newsgroups and other public e-mail lists, tracking and rating contributors' social habits and determining "people who the system has shown to have value." Those concerned that it's not a good idea for computers to track their belongings and whereabouts are advised that they may ultimately have to fragment their identities, keeping multiple IDs and e-mail addresses."

Comments

Re:RTFA, What is really going on here

[pair-a-noyd]

If you run real fast you can catch up with the turnip truck.
Hurry now before they miss you!

Or Take A Fucking Stand

[FreeUser]

Since the early days of netnews (now Usenet) is has been fairly clear that everything you post is being saved, and anything you post if fair game to be responded to, analyzed, and/or held against you at a later date. If this disturbs you, don't post in public forums.

Or take a fucking stand for freedom of speech.

I mean real, honest, what-the-founding-fathers-intended freedom of speech, not Baby Bush style "freedom of speech has consiquences" (such as harrassment, death threats, destruction of one's livlihood, and other sanctions both official and extracurricular). We have all, over the years (since the 1980s in any event, perhaps longer) been selling out this fundamental principle everytime we hold our breath and don't speak for fear of "consiquences" (like losing one's job) and don't speak out when these sort of sanctions are brought against another.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean you don't have consiquences: others may disagree, yell at you, argue, even dislike and avoid you. It does, however, mean you should be able to speak without sanctions being taken against you, whether it be by an employer, an organization, or a government. Indeed, those who organize boycotts based upon people's speech ("Boycott X, he's a Baby Bush basher!", "Boycott Y, he's a right wing facist!"), while free to do so, are most assuredly taking a very firm anti-free speech stance, and should themselves be shouted at for doing so.

Were freedom of speech respected and upheld, not just by the government, but by the people, the sort of information tracking Microsoft is engagin in, while despicable, wouldn't really matter all that much, and one wouldn't have to fear for one's livlihood merely because one has a controversial opinion. Which was what the founding fathers wanted and intended, and what we as a society betrayed a long time ago.

Perhaps, slowly, as things grow worse, we'll rethink this, take a step back, and start upholding the concept of freedom of speech again rather than just paying it lip service, and tell idiots who fire employees, organize boycotts against country music singers who express their disdain for Baby Bush, organize boycotts against Rush Limbaugh (or his affiliated radio stations) for being a right-wing pundit, or endorse the harm and even destruction of lives of those whose views they don't share (Mr. Bush, are your goons reading this?) with such inane comments as "freedom of speech has a price."

The alternative is freedom of speech concentration camp style: i.e. using Bush's argument, and those put forward by those who either advocate or are ambivelent about our restricted freedom of expression, one can just as easilly argue that soviet Russia had freedom of speech: after all, under Stalin you could speak your mind freely, it is just that such freedom has consiquences (like spending 20 years in the Gulag).

Enough already. It is time we reasserted our fundamental right to freedom of speech, and damn any employer, government, church, or other organization to hell who tries to take it back again.