VP of Product R&D Jason Bickham questions why tech execs think the Polyfill debacle is ‘over.’
Is “Facts!” really a greeting now? Which apparently doesn’t even require context – you can just pound fists and say, “Facts!”
I checked with my teenager to confirm, she was confident I had missed something. Then I showed her the video of a teacher greeting students as they exited the school bus.
Puzzled, she replied, “No, they’re using it wrong.”
I told her the culture passed her by, and 14 is the new 44. Our new fist-bump exchange goes like this: She says, “Facts!” and I say, “Vegetables!”
Why? Because now any random noun can be a greeting! More importantly though, I can still make my teenager laugh.
The Threat Remains the Same
If we’re going to laugh at facts that used to be meaningful but now are not, let’s have a good guffaw at this one:
In June, multiple stories broke about Pollyfill impacting over a 100k websites putting the sites and users around the globe at risk. The game of whack-a-mole continued.
Threads were pulled. Fingers were pointed. Someone at a Chinese-owned company said, “Wha? It’s not my stuff. I swear!”
Ugh, Jason… it’s November, man. The Polyfill thing is over—it’s old news.
Who owns the Polyfill[.]io domain and who controls the code it delivers?
Doesn’t matter. The domain doesn’t resolve right now, it returns a 404.
Got it. Okay. “Would you like to play a game?” (Is that a lost reference?)
Ownership and accountability may be dead but the FACT remains that a bad idea is still a bad idea.
So let’s say that domain is still owned and operated by the shady outfit and you still have it on your site—even if it’s 404-ing and “not breaking anything” (“Boeing logic” strikes again!). You would be good to be the accountable person when it stops 404-ing and starts doing something new?
Well, I think—
“No,” is the answer; just “No.”
Ownership and accountability may be dead but the FACT remains that a bad idea is still a bad idea. So even if you’re running the websites of legacy media companies that have been around for 97 and 98 years—
That’s VERY specific.
I KNOW!
–you would want to take action right? Versus having the data available to drive wise decisions, but choose to do nothing instead, rely on your inherent “un-touch-ability” and run smack into a terrible outcome…
Did you just make an election joke?
Did I? Wasn’t I making a vague reference to a 140-year-old telecom’s massive data breach that they didn’t report to their users for 2 years?
I see what you did there.
And, as I tell my kids, “These are not the accomplishments we aspire for.”
A Mock Salute to Inaction
Congratulations, active-vest-clad tech execs! Your attire is finally seasonally appropriate AND you’ve still got Polyfill on your sites.
Give us a shout when you want to do something about it — we’ll be here!
Facts!
Vegetables!
