I like to think I tell the truth.
As a Quaker I maintain that there is only one standard of truth.
I am not interested in fibs or "white lies".
So I was taken aback recently when I realized that sometime in the last year or so I had started telling deliberate lies.
Installing software is a time consuming process.
They make you jump through hoop after hoop, entering serial numbers, activation codes, name, rank and number, your mother's maiden name and what you had for dinner.
Well that's how it always seems.
So when I reach the hoop that asks me if I agree the the twenty or so pages of terms and conditions I click the YES button.
I may be stupid to trust Apple Inc.
not to cheat me but that's my prerogative.
So, what's the problem? Standing in a bus queue this week, my iPhone vibrated.
There was a little message telling me I needed to update 2 applications.
OK, I press update.
It wants my password - fair enough, I enter that and press return.
Now it asks me if I have read the revised iTunes terms and conditions.
Well no, I haven't so I press NO.
My iPhone goes very quiet.
So I start again and this time I click on the terms and conditions link.
Up comes page one of ten pages.
Do I really want to read ten pages of legalese? No.
So I have a choice: forgo the update or tell a lie.
I choose the lie as I'm sure 99.
9% of people do, faced with the same situation.
Do they really expect us to read pages of legal conditions? If they don't why do they ask us to claim that we have? This problem is not confined to Apple, of course.
All products that include intellectual rights come with pages of legal conditions and restrictions.
Does it really matter? Isn't this all rather trivial.
Yes and no.
This example is trivial but I think it is indicative of a gradual devaluing of integrity that faces us all as we make more and more use of the internet.
I know I can opt out but I want to play a full part in the world in which I live and I can't do that without the excellent facilities that information technologyprovides.
I think business should rethink the way it trades with it's customers.
As a Quaker I maintain that there is only one standard of truth.
I am not interested in fibs or "white lies".
So I was taken aback recently when I realized that sometime in the last year or so I had started telling deliberate lies.
Installing software is a time consuming process.
They make you jump through hoop after hoop, entering serial numbers, activation codes, name, rank and number, your mother's maiden name and what you had for dinner.
Well that's how it always seems.
So when I reach the hoop that asks me if I agree the the twenty or so pages of terms and conditions I click the YES button.
I may be stupid to trust Apple Inc.
not to cheat me but that's my prerogative.
So, what's the problem? Standing in a bus queue this week, my iPhone vibrated.
There was a little message telling me I needed to update 2 applications.
OK, I press update.
It wants my password - fair enough, I enter that and press return.
Now it asks me if I have read the revised iTunes terms and conditions.
Well no, I haven't so I press NO.
My iPhone goes very quiet.
So I start again and this time I click on the terms and conditions link.
Up comes page one of ten pages.
Do I really want to read ten pages of legalese? No.
So I have a choice: forgo the update or tell a lie.
I choose the lie as I'm sure 99.
9% of people do, faced with the same situation.
Do they really expect us to read pages of legal conditions? If they don't why do they ask us to claim that we have? This problem is not confined to Apple, of course.
All products that include intellectual rights come with pages of legal conditions and restrictions.
Does it really matter? Isn't this all rather trivial.
Yes and no.
This example is trivial but I think it is indicative of a gradual devaluing of integrity that faces us all as we make more and more use of the internet.
I know I can opt out but I want to play a full part in the world in which I live and I can't do that without the excellent facilities that information technologyprovides.
I think business should rethink the way it trades with it's customers.
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