So it looks like we're rushing headlong into an e-society sometimes called a digital society. That sounds good eh what? Progress! Future is now! Power to the People via the Internet! Convenience! Cellphone banking! Cellphone parking pass! Cellphone restaurant reservations! Music and movie purchasing on your portable device! Vid-conferencing overseas! Digital communications in developing economies without reliance on expensive land-based infrastructure! Texting! Twittering! Global socializing! Googling! Global positioning! Mass grassroots movements in culture, religion and politics!
Instant world, quite literally at our fingertips.
Who would not want to celebrate the move to the digital world?
Have you ever taken the time to read the terms and conditions of use and privacy policies of Internet service providers, e-tailers, government offices, pretty much all websites of large corporate bodies be they commercial or social enterprises for profit or not-for-profit?
Some versions, when printed on 8.5 X 11 paper run into twenty pages and more, often in language not used in everyday conversation, perhaps even in "legalese".
In a casual chat some years ago with a lawyer with a specialty in e-commerce suits mentioned that the smallest claim represented by one of the cases in a stack of files on his desk was $660,000 CAN.
I thought about that and within the context of the terms and conditions of use and privacy policy statements on websites and after having a conversation with the RCMP Commercial Crime unit, electronic fraud, I asked if that meant that the threshold for economic viability of a lawsuit for e-commerce was then in his experience, $660,000. That meant that if a claim was less than $660,000 it probably wasn't worth the legal effort to pursue as the cost of legal action was too great to warrant pursuing.
I then wondered what the average cost of legal counsel must be to prepare those Terms and Conditions of Use and Privacy Policy legal documents. I really don't know but I assume the cost would be higher than the cost of buying a popular novel on chapters.indigo.ca, for example.
I was pretty sure it really was not worth it for me to hire a legal counsel team to assure that the democratic principle of equality before the law was not simply an empty statement but an actual fact in practice. I mean, for argument's sake, I suspect that all legal advice being an equal commodity irrespective of which lawyers I use, which I am pretty sure is not the case, I could expect to have to spend approximately the same as the organization whose website I am transacting business with.
Transacting business, by the way, includes any communication between the owner of that website and myself, even one-way communication, as much as actually purchasing something.
I view the move to an e-society to be as significant as the move to recording events on whatever medium - clay, stone, wood, papyrus, cave walls - from recording them only orally.
As it stands, I see our basic democratic principles under threat either from direct and purposeful attack or carelessness. We make many assumptions every day about the success of our transactions. We buy a pair of socks at the Bay. There is someone wearing a Bay-labelled name tag, standing behind a cash register in the Bay's store. We assume that person is a Bay employee authorized to consummate the transaction. We have no direct knowledge that is the case. Experience, our ability to communicate verbally and non-verbally combine to tell us this is a legitimate transaction.
Imagine doing that on the Internet. "Bernie? Bernie? Bernie Madoff, is that you on the other end of this communication? I'm trying to but a car here and I would like to be sure that after I transfer my cash to you via Pay Pal I will receive my car."
"Now come on, don't you recognize me? I'm not Bernie whathisname. I'm Alan Mulally, President and CEO of Ford Motor Company just like I said I am. As soon as I get confirmation from my bank that your Pay Pal payment has been cleared, your new Lincoln will be on its way! Congratulations on owning your new Lincoln."
I have to say that I am pretty sure Bernie Madoff never even attempted to sell Ford cars on the Internet or pretended to be Alan Mulally. I'm also pretty sure that Alan Mulally would never actually be the person to respond to an Internet purchase order even if Ford did retail its cars directly to consumers via an Internet link.
But I hope my point is clear.
I suggest that we need some form of neutral transaction control facility or infrastructure to enable a "meeting of the minds" in a digital world, putting the principal of equality before the law into practice, thereby living democratically in daily activities.
But all this development to date has been done in the presence of ballot boxes, so of course we live democratically in daily activities! Or do we?
Mike
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You made some really good points here, Mike. But I suspect we will survive the Internet and all the other e-stuff, and we'll embrace it for all its good points. Yes, there are serious challenges with the World of E, but I have also seen a lot of progress over the last 15 years ... and for most, it has only been 15 years. We're now at the cusp of a massive societal change that will bring much good. Of course there are bad things that come with the good, too. In my opinion, Newton's Laws of Motion apply to changes in society as much as to physics.
ReplyDeleteYour comment about "neutral transaction control" sounds positive, but "neutral" and "control" in the same sentence seems counter-intuitive. That could lead to a form of censorship or enforced enlightenment. IMO, a better "neutral control" is education, education and more education. It has worked with e-stuff, it works with other issues in society (although it does depend on who is doing the educating and who has the money). Just a thought.