Personal Policies

Ever deal with a company and run up against some unreasonable policy? Some ironclad rule that can't be changed? A situation where there's a conflict between you and the company, and you inherently lose? Me too. That's why I decided to have some policies of my own. Whenever any company insists that I have to do one of these things, I say "I have a policy of not doing that". Then it's up to them to find a way around their policy. Either that or I take my business elsewhere.

1. I do not give my social security number to any company or agency that is not required to have it by law. The social security number makes it far too easy to automatically combine data about people from multiple sources. There are very few legitimate reasons for a business to need a social security number - one is if they are paying you a salary and are required to withhold tax from your paycheck; another is if you earn income through them and they are required to report that income to the government. That's about it.
2. I do not pay money to Microsoft, either by directly buying Microsoft products or by buying products that come bundled with Microsoft software. Microsoft's deliberate negligence in the handling of unsafe email attachments and web pages has cost consumers and businesses hundreds of billions of dollars due to viruses. They are an illegal monopoly, but the US government has demonstrated that it's not willing to regulate them in any significant way. I don't pretend I can take them down, but I'm not willing to pay tribute to them either.
3. I do not buy things from companies that spam.
4. I do not agree to donate to any charity or cause over the telephone. I do this because I'm tired of being phone spammed. If they want to send me something in snail mail I'll consider it.
5. I do not use grocery affinity cards, and I avoid shopping at groceries that artifically inflate prices for those who don't use affinity cards. I do not want Kroger (or anyone else) to track what kinds of food I buy.
6. I do not buy music, software, information, or hardware that is encumbered with digital rights management (DRM) technology. Copyright is supposed to strike a balance between the public's need to have low-cost access to information, and the public's need to encourage authors to create new works. It gives very specific, limited rights to content creators to give them incentive. It also provides exceptions to those rights for fair use. DRM takes away the balance by letting content creators or distributors impose whatever restrictions they wish.

1.	I do not give my social security number to any company or agency that is not required to have it by law. The social security number makes it far too easy to automatically combine data about people from multiple sources. There are very few legitimate reasons for a business to need a social security number - one is if they are paying you a salary and are required to withhold tax from your paycheck; another is if you earn income through them and they are required to report that income to the government. That's about it.
2.	I do not pay money to Microsoft, either by directly buying Microsoft products or by buying products that come bundled with Microsoft software. Microsoft's deliberate negligence in the handling of unsafe email attachments and web pages has cost consumers and businesses hundreds of billions of dollars due to viruses. They are an illegal monopoly, but the US government has demonstrated that it's not willing to regulate them in any significant way. I don't pretend I can take them down, but I'm not willing to pay tribute to them either.
3.	I do not buy things from companies that spam.
4.	I do not agree to donate to any charity or cause over the telephone. I do this because I'm tired of being phone spammed. If they want to send me something in snail mail I'll consider it.
5.	I do not use grocery affinity cards, and I avoid shopping at groceries that artifically inflate prices for those who don't use affinity cards. I do not want Kroger (or anyone else) to track what kinds of food I buy.
6.	I do not buy music, software, information, or hardware that is encumbered with digital rights management (DRM) technology. Copyright is supposed to strike a balance between the public's need to have low-cost access to information, and the public's need to encourage authors to create new works. It gives very specific, limited rights to content creators to give them incentive. It also provides exceptions to those rights for fair use. DRM takes away the balance by letting content creators or distributors impose whatever restrictions they wish.