You see it every day just about every mainstream and tabloid news site. Nothing stays a secret. Just ask Britney Spears……. A piece of information/data put into play will at first flow on its own inertia to its closest intended point, after that watch out! That piece of data is then enters “data pinball”. The flipper hits it and while the intent is to send it in a certain direction, you have no idea where it is going to end up. Each time it hits a “bumper” it is sent off in a whole new direction with new force and inertia. Theoretically this will go on as long as someone “bumpers” or “flips” it again in a whole different direction…….. 

What is ironic is that the data itself will never change form but what finally makes it into the mainstream depending on where it ‘bounces” is never conveys the original message………  Just ask George Karl’s attorney Brett Adams of the law firm of Adams Babner and Gitlitz who sent the owner of the web site FireGeorgeKarl.com (the coach of the Denver Nuggets) his infamous “I will sue you into bankruptcy” email.   When the email finally came to rest on that same website… the message was not that the website was posting anything improper but that Brett Adams was an arrogant jerk…..   I don’t know if he is or not. I have never met him. That is the danger of Data Pinball…..

 The “data pinball” is sent off to hit other bumpers, setting off all new bells and whistles, racking new “data pinball” points for its new owner…..So why do we keep doing such stupid things with our data!

Whether it is emails, photos, text messages etc…… A whole blog could be written about famous people and people who received unwanted “fame” as a direct result of not thinking about this before they hit send on their email, text message or voicemail rant or secret affair rendezvous….. From the highest level of technology down to the good old telephone. Just ask Alec Baldwin……  His data started on good old telephone lines and ended up pinballing all over the world…..     His voicemail visitation rant to his daughter will be on YouTube until YouTube is no more or hell freezes over….Who knows when it will stop if ever……. Embarrassment is just the least of the damage; careers and marriages are ended…. 

We have all done it. I am just as guilty. There have been many times where I sent that text, or email and just seconds after send wished to hell I hadn’t done it…… Too late I now have to assume those texts or emails are stored somewhere just waiting to be pinballed somewhere at some point in time for whatever reason and when least expect it…… Will there be an unknown and timeless price to pay for that instantaneous moment of adrenaline gratification I sought when I hit send and patted myself on the back for letting that person have it…..

Ah yes…… The game of data pinball……. Where’s my quarter……….