Unilever Warns Facebook & Google

In recent days international corporate giant "Unilever," the maker of such products as "Hellman's Mayonnaise," "Dove Soap" and "Lipton Tea," and, from what I understand, the second largest advertiser in the world, has issued a stern warning to tech powerhouses "Google" and "Facebook," that Unilever will pull advertising from these companies, if the tech leaders don't deal with what Unilever termed platforms that are "little better than a swamp." Unilever wants the tech companies to help clean up "fake news," work to protect children and to stop groups from using social media that seek to heighten divisions in society and to "promote hate." DAMN! Donald Trump, watch out! I'm not sure why "Twitter" was left out of the companies, unless Unilever doesn't advertise there? Overall, I'm for it, but the problem is, the devil is in the details. We'll have to see how any of this develops, as, on the surface, some may feel this should be pretty easily done, but in the world of the Internet, where someone can be in Antarctica, but can make themselves appear to be in Des Moines, Iowa, and where the tech companies have had such tremendous leeway to make money, it's going to COST money to police these websites, and my guess is, LOTS of money. If other companies follow Unilever's lead, the tech companies will essentially be left with no choice, but to act.         

It's been my own opinion for quite some time, that Internet companies should not have been given such tremendous leeway to start with, and both major political parties have their fingerprints on this mess, sort of, "the Wild West of the Web." All of the tech companies, not just Facebook and Google, follow their users around the Internet and keep track of which sites users go to and what items and information they search for. Of course, they ONLY want their users to have a great experience, part of which seems to include the sale of  information they have on all of us to advertisers, who can then target us with ads tied to our website visits and searches. So, the tech companies make money from YOUR information, but you get "a great experience on the Web," whatever the hell that means.

WORD HISTORY:
Tame-This word goes back to Indo European "demeh," which had the notion, "to compel, to force;" thus also, "to break the wildness from, to get an animal accustomed to being around humans." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "tamaz," with the same meaning as the latter Indo European meaning;" thus, "to tame." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "tam," an adjective, meaning, "tame(d)." This then became "tame," initially with the ending "e" pronounced "eh/ah." Old English had the verb "temian," ("to tame, to make mild, to subdue"), but the modern verb "seems" to have come from the adjective. The other Germanic languages have (adjective forms): German "zahm," Low German Saxon "tamm," West Frisian "tam" (no longer used??), Dutch "tam," Danish "tam," Icelandic "tam" (this is the root, but apparently there are various endings; that is, inflections, on the root depending upon usage), Norwegian "tam," Swedish "tam."