C|Net’s News.com exists to make money. It pays reporters and editors to produce stories that will interest people and get them to read C|Net content, because that readership induces advertisers to pay them.
So it is no act of beneficence or altruism when a reporter goes out and asks 13 security companies whether government spyware used in investigations would be detected by their security software, or whether they would intentionally fail to report it. The results are interesting, and they’ve been reproduced verbatim by C|Net, in a calculated attempt to make money.
I’m having a little fun with the “greed” talk, of course, and don’t see anything wrong with seeking profit, because profit-seekers do a lot of good for others. In this case, a reporter is putting tough questions to software companies on our behalf – and putting those companies on notice that they should think twice before altering or degrading their products at the behest of law enforcement.
That’s a small but important help to our privacy protections. And it’s provided by the market for infotainment – which is as important, if not more important, than lobbying our representatives or trying to sue the government.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.