ZoneAlarm Accuses U.S. DOT Of Fraud
Members of the media and the legal profession who receive regular updates from the U.S. Department of Transportation were in for a shock this morning as they opened the last announcement from NHTSA. ZoneAlarm by Check Point Software, which claims market leadership in the firewall and security business, warns that a DOT press release is a “possible fraud attempt.”
This could discourage many recipients from learning that the 30-second PSA , “Get the Message,” which “features clips from people from across the country who lost loved ones in distracted driving crashes” has received more than 100,000 views on YouTube.
Apparently, the warning is triggered by a little government snooping on who may or may not click on the YouTube link in the press release. Instead on linking directly to the YouTube tearjerker – like so – the press release routes the clicks through links.govdelivery.com, along with a whale of a tracking ID.
Once links.govdelivery.com has done whatever it does with the information, it passes the viewer on to the heart-wrenching video of innocent children that were killed by text messages.
ZoneAlarm doesn’t like the sleight of hand and accuses govdelivery.com of impersonating YouTube. Or distraction.gov.
Ah, the dangers of distracted (or overly nosy) press releases.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Now sir...could you please tell the ladies and the gentlemen of the jury why after watching that there youtube video warning of the horrors of distracted driving (exhibit a: logged ip, along with timestamped photos from 3 government satellites , a streaming video from your webcam at the time, and the gps coordinates of your cellphone at the time, along with the youtube clip for good measure) you went and drove while texting and ran into my client here's Thundercooperfalconbird?
Another gov't hound sticks its nose in the Citizenry's crotch...
They could have an even more shocking video of what NATO (inclusding US) bombs have done to Libyan civilians. Oh, the horror. They pick and choose their carnage videos for their own purposes. And LaHood is an idiot who got his position through patronage, but he's far from alone in DC in that capacity..
A cynic might think that Zone Alarm is feeding the fear of intrusive government snooping in order to sell more of it's software, or at least to gain a bit of attention.
The real privacy risks are found within organizations like Facebook, Google and your credit card company more so than with the government.