Webupon

These are three well used sites (and one email provider) which do have dark corners. You know them, you’ve used them, but do you know about them?

Google is the most popular search engine. In fact, the word ‘Google’ has passed into the English language as a term for research or investigation.

Although quite useful, many people shun it for the simple reason that it keeps records for up to eighteen months on what you search for.

A perfectly innocent person, for example, might be perplexed about the materials used in a bomb. That these searches are being captured and stored is rather frightening.

Further, Google’s operation in China has raised a number of questions as it seems that it blocks the sites the Chinese government does not wish its people to see. Coupled with storage of search terms, suggests it might not be living up to its motto of “Don’t be Evil.”

Wikipedia has become the “go-to” place for just about every inquiry. Answers to what is, who is, where is, makes this on line encyclopedia extremely popular, especially when it gives biographies for fictional characters. 

The problem is accuracy. How much can one rely on an entry?

Doug Spearman, a minor actor, learned he was HIV positive on Wiki. He has no idea who entered that information, and was rather distressed by it, especially as it is untrue.

If something of that nature can “slip” into Wiki, what else is being presented as fact, which may not be true?

Spearman is alive, he can dispute the entry. What about those who are dead or who have no idea they have an entry?

FaceBook is the most popular social networking site. People from all over the world join, post photos, communicate. There is one problem. Unless you physically log off, and make sure you are logged off, you are still on. As most people simply close a site, that means they are still on.

A site one needs to log off, not just close, is one you might not want to log on to.  

Yahoo mail is one of those email accounts that “everybody” seems to have. The problem with yahoo is that it takes a great deal of information from you, and unless you lie from keystroke one, so that ‘your’ information is false, it shares it with the world.

Joining yahoo mail, you usually give your real name and address, then chose a nickname.  When you send email, it doesn’t arrive as bubbles@yahoo.com, but (Lucy Brown) bubbles@yahoo.com. Hence what is the purpose of a nick name when one’s real name is exposed?

Many people use nicks so as to create a disconnect between who they are in Real Life and their private interests. If one wanted to expose their real name, then they wouldn’t have selected Bubbles.

I am not discouraging the usages of these sites, I am simply giving you a bit more information about them then you might have.