I try to keep you guys out of my special “blogger world” and just let you live in the “saving money” world when it comes to my life. Listening to me complain about “blogging world” is reserved for my friends and family.
However for today I am taking a stand with many others against a new bill that is making it’s way around Washington DC. If this bill passes internet censorship will change forever and thousands of sites like mine will be in jeopardy of being shut down.
Without getting into the confusing parts this bill (SOPA) poses a huge threat to my way of life. If this bill is passed basically all anyone has to do is CLAIM that you have copywrited materical on your site and they shut you down without any proof at all. Literally it says all they have to do is write a letter and the companies that you work with have 5 days to pull everything from you.
So let’s say that another blogger posts the same deal I do- maybe they do the Food Lion match ups like I do or they find the same coupon. They can then send a notice into Google and Paypal letting them know I have stolen their property and I begin a long and complicated battle to continue my livlihood.
And it’s not just going to affect me either- if you have a Flikr account and someone thinks your photo is too close to theirs, the same thing could happen to you. This is on all internet property- not just those of us making a living online.
So today January 18th many website are going dark (have you tried to get into Wikipedia today? how about google?)- they will not do any work during the day in protest. I seriously considered doing this. And honestly if it wasn’t a Wednesday I might have. However I know many of my readers get their grocery match ups on Wednesday and I am not going to punish your families by taking those deals away.
On the same token as the vote for this bill gets closer and closer I may ask you to drop an e-mail to your local representative and let him or her know that you think it’s a bad idea. Talks resume in February so for now we will watch and wait.
I am so thankful every day for those of you who read me site and give me love in comments and facebook. I have the greatest job in the world and anything that threatens it I will fight.
Amen!