tom moody

Let's translate some of this corporate smarm-speak:

We think it's cute that in the old days of the Web people used funny fake names but in the modern world, that's not advancing our business model. The name you chose isn't really hard to read, that's just some crap we're saying. Here's the bottom line: if you're going to continue playing here for free, posting cute animal antics and such, we need a name -- your name -- to give to our advertisers and miscellaneous government agencies so they can start building dossiers on you. If you can't handle that, post your own fuzzy animals and see how many people find them.

Douglas Rushkoff on why he is quitting Facebook. (CNN)
Am making note of these high-profile walkouts even though Rushkoff's reasons seem aimed mostly at other celebrity authors.
Tracking Farcecrack disillusionment is kind of a hobby now.

Google must be snickering in the back office these days about their famous "do no evil" pledge. Besides all the consumer spying, er tracking, they do and rolling over for law enforcement, they're getting aggressive about combining and Zuckerizing their various subsidiaries to make you a sitting "unitary identity" duck.
(On my pseudonymous YouTube account they are harrassing me bloody murder with popups to give them my all-important real name. The first name starts with F and the last with U; I tried to delete my account last night and discovered the "Close" button isn't connected to anything.)

Speaking of ducks, am going to try using DuckDuckGo as an alternative search engine for a while. It comes recommended and boasts "no tracking." Will let you know after a few weeks if this is an alternative to the three-company web.