Prostitutes And Cash Cows

Okay folks, this is the "straw that broke the camels back"! Did you know that Google, Super Pages and Yellow Pages have your telephone number and a map to your house in their search? Yes, it's true. If you go to www.google.com. and www.superpages.com. and type your phone number with area code in their browser, your phone number, with name and address will come up. What's worse is, you, or anyone else who wants to find you, can click the map option to get a map showing directions to your house. This is an outrage! Can you imagine the implications. What if some pedophile, an old friend or acquaintance with an axe to grind or any other type of wacko wants to track you down? It will be easy now. It's bad enough that they can call and harass you at all hours because they have your phone number, (which in all fairness, they had to have to begin with to use this feature) but now they can show up at your front door with ease thanks to our friends at these websites.
Now, I should mention, the sites give you the option to complete an on line form to have your information removed within forty-eight hours. How noble of them. My question is this: why should the burden be on us to take the time to fill out a form to have the maps removed? Shouldn't they have to get our permission first to publish that information? This is a serious issue folks. I know, all this could be avoided if everyone paid to have their phone number unlisted since this information basically comes from the phonebook. But the issue isn't so much the phone number as it is the map. Do you remember giving these companies permission to post maps to your house on the web? I know I didn't.
This whole issue is the result of, what I think is a backwards mind set. Let me explain what I mean. When your name is published in a phone book or when you subscribe to magazines or apply for a credit card, your personal information and your purchasing habits are sold to companies who in turn try to solicit you? Where do you think those annoying phone calls and junk mail come from? And we won't even mention the countless junk emails that fill your mailbox on line. Hey folks, these companies are making big bucks selling your information to other companies. Don't you like knowing that companies are making money off of you that way? Where is your cut? How is this not any different from being a prostitute? Actually, there is a difference, prostitutes get paid to sell themselves and they had a choice to sell themselves. We don't get the former and the latter is contingent and illusory. And, what about our right to privacy? I guess it is not as valuable as these companies rights to hound people to try and make a buck, all done with your governments blessing! That's right, they can do it because it's completely legal.
Well, if it's any consolation, they have some serious competition when it comes to picking your wallet. The government still has the highest place of "honor" in that department. Well, what do you expect, they've been doing it a lot longer and have more experience developing creative new ways of extorting your hard earned money. And, lets not forget, the government, unlike big business, can always use coercive methods on us to get every last dollar they want. Remember, we are nothing less than cash cows to the government. If you don't believe me or think I'm just exaggerating, look at your tax form you get from the IRS. What does it address you as? "Dear Taxpayer." Have you ever really thought about how insulting that is? But that's what we are to the government, taxpayers, cash cows.
So which one of these opposing forces battling for our wallet will win? The ones with the guns of course. We can never be the lucrative prostitutes for big business when we are the cash cows for the government. Why? because we have limited incomes, which translates into limited discretionary cash. The ultimate losers will always be us because we are seen by both government and big business as sources of money, not as the individuals we are.