The 1st rule of social media and digital communications really should be

“Little Brother is watching…and he’s a snitch”

While George Orwell trained us to distrust government (aka Big Brother), his crystal ball didn’t foresee all the little brothers that would take your money AND betray you for their own profitability.

After the UK riots, Blackberry maker RIM made the BBMs stored on RIM’s servers available to the UK police.

Add this to all the cases where Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc have buckled under National Security Letters and other arm-twisting and all of a sudden, 1984 reads like an UTOPIAN fantasy.

Read more here…http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/09/bbm_riots/

MS says EU data open to Patriot Act seizures…http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/04/eu_customer_cloud_data_may_be_handed_over_by_microsoft/

If you’re concerned about Google retaining your personal data, then you must be doing something you shouldn’t be doing. At least that’s the word from Google CEO Eric Schmidt….http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/07/schmidt_on_privacy/

Aug 23, 2011 – facebook & Twitter are also meeting with the UK government – http://thenextweb.com/uk/2011/08/22/confirmed-twitter-will-meet-with-the-uk-government-for-riot-talks/

So, my compliance-oriented readers, what is YOUR social media, BBM, SMS, EMAIL communications policy?