Isn’t it time to hold Silicon Valley accountable?
The tech wizards — with hoards of cash cozily sitting in off-shore tax havens — had their say in the run-up to and the aftermath of the presidential election.
Over the past several years, hacking and cybercrimes have skyrocketed. In fact, it has gotten to the point where there have been hacks against the US government, corporate America and, of course, political campaigns.
Last week, Apple, Facebook and Amazon reported strong growth and incredible earnings power. Google reported a $5.3 billion quarterly profit two weeks ago.
It’s time for the titans of tech to step up and make their product environment more secure. Because it seems they do it for themselves.
If banks were to get hacked, it would be on the hook to you, the depositor.
When a credit card gets hacked or stolen and is used online to purchase items, it is the credit card company that is on the hook.
Both banks and credit card companies are insured for these types of things, and they purchase the insurance at a cost to them. They are extraordinarily and properly watchful over transactions that look fraudulent — in fact, it’s usually your card company that alerts you that somebody has been illicitly using your card before you even have a chance to notice. That’s how good they are.
Additionally, when Google, Amazon and Apple all reported their earnings, there were no catastrophic losses from hacking.
Amazon is essentially the world’s largest online shopping mall yet, miraculously, it is seemingly impenetrable. Same with Apple’s iTunes platform. And ditto for Google, eBay and PayPal.
However, customers using Gmail or iTunes or other accounts have had their info stolen and their credit cards used elsewhere. And it’s always on the banks and credit card companies to make the customer whole — despite the fact that it was the provider’s technology that was breached in the first place.
Should Google not be on the hook for an e-mail scam that costs its users millions? Or Apple for iTunes letting credit card data be swiped? Why is it the bank’s fault when an e-mail phishing scam via Google is the culprit?
I actually do understand why: Silicon Valley has some talented lobbyists and they donate a tremendous amount of money — far more than many realize.
Do you ever wonder why we don’t ever see the hacked private e-mails of Apple’s Tim Cook or Google’s Larry Page?
Clearly they have very advanced technical capabilities to protect their own assets. It’s time they protect the rest of us the same way.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
