Anonymity personifies the World Wide Web. If you're someone you can be no one on the web. Feel free to shop for your unmentionables, no one-will stare. You don't want to haggle with a salesman ever the price of collectible or even a new vehicle? You don't have to. On the web you are no one and that suits most people just fine.

What does identify you? Hair color? ... Certainly your name would identify you. What about geographic location? Some online retailers are using new technology revealing just that. One example is in Internet gambling. Many online retailers are beginning to use said technology to make their sites inaccessible to those where the law forbids online gambling. It is done on location alone. One only needs to know what country you call home.

Geolocation technology is being used to protect companies so that their solicitation cannot reach those consumers that the product being offered would be illegal. In effect a wall is being built within the Internet, this technology is creating borders where once there were none. When it comes to selling a product to someone where it maybe or is in fact illegal. Many would agree that such a technology is long overdue.

What if what you are looking for is "democracy " or "human rights"? Geographically speaking, many governments see this technology as a means to stifle the spread of such ideas. Trouble is this is already happening without the geolocation technology. According to Joe McDonald from the Associated Press, Microsoft shut down an Internet journal of a Chinese blogger, which discussed a strike at a Beijing newspaper. The story went on to state that Microsoft explained that the blog "violated their code of conduct" which states that users must be in compliance with local laws in which the country is based.

In a similar story, Simon Thomas of the Epoch times discovered with the help of a colleague that his paper (Epoch Times) was unreachable to the residents of China via the Internet. When Mr. Thomas talked with Google's Manager of International Public Relations about the issue, the excuse given was "improving user experience". In China if you do a search on a news story, you will get a list of articles that will match your search criteria, with a summary. If you attempt to click on a link that you as a resident of China are not allowed to see, the link simply will not click through to the topic that you selected.

Google, in the interest of providing the best user experience, has completely excised anything that maybe deemed inappropriate, by the Chinese government standards to the user. Google took the Chinese government's censorship further in the interest of customer service. Previously the user could, at least, read the summary but now thanks to Google, not the Chinese government, even that is denied. I'm glad Google doesn't care that much about my user experience; as Simon Thomas puts in his article, "you get a false sense of reality. " With Chinese censorship, the citizens of China saw what they were missing but now they cannot even see that.

Suffocating the spread of ideas by corporate America on behalf of the Chinese government for the Yen. I thought free trade was supposed to spread democracy, for everyone, instead it is held hostage by those that are supposed to send the message.