A year or two ago, I remembered that a beautifully-simple way to get around breaking down the walls of a city or scaling the gates was simply to roll up to the gates with a beautiful hand-crafted horse gift and wait for them to take it inside. Sound familiar? The Trojan Horse. Sure, we use the word to talk about viruses. But there is more than one shape of horse. The first time it occurred to me that I was giving someone access to the inside of my site was when those banners were going around for the front page of your site; the ones that said 'IMPEACH BUSH.'

I dropped the code into my blog template, but took it out after a week or so. It wasn't that I decided IMPEACHing BUSH was a bad idea. It struck me that I was opening my door for someone; opening the door to my site and all its visitors to whatever the hell that script was really programmed to do. Because did I really know? No. Not me.

Now, what with technorati and all, we've become used to this dropping in of code, giving access to various companies and services because they do neat things for us. Lots of bells and whistles and...gifts.

There is a nifty new blogtoy called "snap," and it gives you a piece of code that you drop into your page as well as scans your site for links. Constantly. It does this so that it can provide snapshots when people hover over links on your site. It's a cool function, and I went to the site to check it out.

The terms of service for software are almost always given in a tiny, tiny box with a lot of words that you have to scroll and the whole setup is so difficult that nobody really bothers reading them. They make the words small and the reading space tiny and the scroll bar with extreme torque so that a little scroll flips a ton of lines. It's almost as if they don't want you reading it, eh? Because being a web-designer I can laugh for the rest of the day if you try to tell me it wouldn't be JUST as easy to make a pop up that is very, very easy to read. But no! They can design neat scripts and toys but not a legible T.O.S. page? Okay.

So, as I often do, I copied all the text, pasted it into an empty text doc, upped the font size, and changed it to a serif style, and it was nice and easy to read. And while I'm sure the snap T.O.S. is not much different than most these days, it did seem to depart even from any pretense that it wasn't using your information—all your information and your visitors', too—in whatever damn way it wants. And in a nice, nifty, networked fashion. And that bothered me. It made me flash back to my first thoughts on this idea of Trojan Horses.

Just because you're paranoid don't mean they're not after you.

—Kurt Cobain

Because what would be the most efficient and seamless way to spy on us? It would be to create pretty gifts that we would all use, that would network us all together, and siphon info like a paranoid Decider with insomnia; gifts that would do various fun things...but that really only rang those bells as an extra. Gifts with the real purpose of getting into your home, onto your bedroom floor until you were asleep, and then open at the seams to let out a billion tiny robot spiders who would nest in every room and report back to their master.

6. Data Collection and Privacy. The Software may collect, store, and periodically send information back to Licensor or third party servers, including [including does NOT mean "only"] URLs accessed by the Software and search queries entered into the Software. In addition, the Software may automatically collect certain ["certain"???] information during the installation process and/or ["and/or"??] indicate to our servers that you have successfully installed the Software.

Use of certain feedback features in the Software may require you to submit certain personal information such as your name and email address. Licensor may retain and use for its own purposes all [ALL] information you provide and all information generated from the operation of the Software (URLs, search queries, etc.). [ETC.]

You agree that Licensor may use all such information internally for any ["ANY!!"] purpose and may additionally transfer and disclose to third parties ["third parties" means "anyone we fuckin feel like telling"] information (including your name, email address, Site domain, URL, and related content) [RELATED content] for the purpose of approving and enabling your use or continued use of the Software, including to third parties that reside in jurisdictions with less restrictive data laws than your own. my emph.

Licensor may also provide information in response to valid legal process, such as ["SUCH AS" does not mean "only"] subpoenas, search warrants and court orders, or to establish or exercise its legal rights or defend against legal claims. Licensor disclaims all responsibility, and will not be liable to you, however, for any disclosure of that information by any such third party. ...

—Snap.com Terms of Service

Business as usual? Perhaps. Do we know what the usual business of data-collection and sharing is today? I fear we do. And all those qualified statements = "we can do anything with all your info and we will."

I cannot agree to such aggressively presumptuous terms, and so there will be no shiny snap toy on this site.

Foily? Smart? Both?

Who knows. I can't be sure of anything except these trinkets sometimes come with a disproportionately high price tag. Like magical items that cast an illusion of strength as they leach your own. Gifts from the Devil's toybox.