I had to post to thank everyone for the feedback in response to this earlier post about privacy from a Jangl point of view. The responses were overwhelmingly positive, particularly as it applied to our simple, plain-language approach.
We got a few questions about how we work with customers who are between 13 and 18 (or whatever the age of legal "majority" is in a particular state), and those questions touched on a great point. On one hand, we need to recognize that some of the smartest mobile folks are teenagers; on the other, we consider it a social responsibility to only promote Jangl when and where it serves our commitment to control and freedom and privacy, for the customer.
At the same time, we got feedback about enabling "bad stuff": terrorism, drugs, etc.
There’s an obvious response here, of course: the fact that there are tons of more sophisticated ways for bad guys to pass information back and forth. Anonymous email addresses, which aren’t really anonymous anyway; Encrypted and watermarked images; Voicemail "drop box" arrangements in which people publish simple voicemail box numbers that — ultimately — give neither the caller nor the called any privacy whatsoever; The always popular word-of-mouth network, in which trusted people pass information only to other trusted people, live.
But is that obvious response good enough? Nope. And so I’ll quote the original post:
". . .If you’re using jangl for illegal things, your jangl number will be caught. (We have access to the same types of data that your phone company does). And then we’ll be subpoened. And if it is a legal request, we’ll honor it. If we feel it is illegal, we’ll speak up and fight — and that’s a whole other subject, for now.
But our principal here is, "If you’re up to illegal activities here, this is not your place."
There are better choices out there for you, and you know all about them. Private voicemail drop-boxes, JPEG encoding, etc. Jangl isn’t one of them.
When we say "freedom" in "freedom rings" we’re talking about the regular people — students, soccer moms, daters, buyers and sellers, etc. — people who just want to impose a little more control and enjoy a little more freedom, without the hassle of spam or the worry that they’re dealing with sickos."
Thank you for your feedback on that privacy post. We appreciate it, and we’re thinking about it, non-stop.
– MC
