A few years ago, an American friend asked if it worries me that the Tatas are into everything and are so big in India. I retorted that I am more worried about Google’s pervasiveness than Tata’s. Sadly, we now have a new scarier competitor to corporations – Governments. Governments across the world, and in many cases, elected democratically. The news that the U.S government is snooping on telephone records and internet traffic isn’t really surprising – after all, that is the reason they have been opposing a free internet for a long time now. What is worse is in countries like ours, where there is a lot more spying going on, with far fewer controls. And if you have not noticed yet, the U.S government is trying to calm the uproar by saying that they only collect data abroad. Remember this when you use networks of any kind – telephone, social, mobile. Anything.
A free world is probably just a dream.
Debmalaya Mitra