First off I want to apologize to Chris Brogan for his trip to Canada being ruined because of Google. Hopefully Chris the bistros more than made up for your troubles.
For those of you may not know the esteemed Mr. Brogan was visiting my fair country (even if it was Montreal) and Google decided that there had been a perceived violation of Google’s Terms of Service or product-specific Terms of Service.” As a result Chris was stranded in a foreign country without his lifeline to his community or his communication platform.
You see when Google disabled his access they left him literally stranded without
- being able to use his Android phone fully
- Access to his primary calendar
- Access to Google Wave which is where he collaborates on projects
- Google Reader
- Google docs and all his documents
In other words just because a single company perceived something was wrong they made a person not exist, because that is what happens when you suddenly find yourself alone – not existing in your once familiar digital world.
Now we have Facebook looking to insinuate itself to a degree only seen before with Google. It was one thing when Robert Scoble found his Facebook account suspended – it was early days of Facebook – and really it was only the fact that Robert was who he was that he got his account back.
However as Facebook increasingly becomes our online identity handler, our way to communicate, our way to be social <gag> what happens when they decide that some perceived wrong and suspends your account.
The idea that a single company has that much control over your digital existence should be enough to scare anyone. Throw in the fact that Facebook is well known for its arbitrary suspending or deleting of accounts and if their march for dominance on the Web doesn’t worry you … well .. here’s some more kool-aid for you.
