Posts tagged Privacy
News Commentary: Applauding Google Dashboard
1On Sundays I offer comments on some of the most interesting information technology stories that I have found on the web that week. Please feel free to join in the discussion or suggest stories during the week.
This week’s story is from BusinessWeek.com and it reports on exciting and unexpected release of Dashboard by Google. This completely unprecedented privacy awareness tool will hopefully spark of trend among online purveyors of data mining and aggregation. Give it a read:
businessweek.com – Google Dashboard: Control Panel for Your Data
Early this morning, Google is launching a new feature that lets you view what data is being stored on a range of Google services. Google Dashboard also will let you control at least some of that data and how it’s used by Google and even delete it.
For a collection of all the stories about this, check-out Google News’ coverage here.
Below is what it looks like for a nominal user. You go to this link and log-in using your Google credentials. It then builds a personal display or dashboard of what tools of theirs you use, what they know about your use of them, and how they got that information. You may, as I was, be surprised at some of the information that they collected on your from many years ago and tools long gone cold.
For thought, privacy is defined on Wikipedia like this:
Privacy (in Latin privatus ‘separated from the rest, deprived of sth, esp. office, participation in the government’, from privo ‘to deprive’) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. The boundaries and content of what is considered private differ among cultures and individuals, but share basic common themes. Privacy is sometimes related to anonymity, the wish to remain unnoticed or unidentified in the public realm. When something is private to a person, it usually means there is something within them that is considered inherently special or personally sensitive. The degree to which private information is exposed therefore depends on how the public will receive this information, which differs between places and over time. Privacy can be seen as an aspect of security — one in which trade-offs between the interests of one group and another can become particularly clear.
While I know that there are really no “rights to privacy” specified in any US founding documents, the principle and expectations are clear from the public. I also know that the web works best when it is tailored to your individual interests, preferences, and concerns. To do the second, while protecting the first is a tight walk on a mile high balance beam. I applaud Google for giving users the ability to help them balance these two polarities while tipping the scales in the direction of your preference by giving you a way to see what they know about you and correct/fix it. While no one is suggesting that this is the final chapter in this meme of the Internet Age, a titan like Google making a stride like this towards the individual is a great step in the right direction. Thank you Google for Dashboard.
You can log-into your own Google Dashboard at this link.
What do you think about this topic? Do you agree or disagree with me? Do you have a recommended news story for next week? Please share your ideas below.
That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for November 8, 2009 by Scott Coughlin.
Image Credits: easyhealth.org.uk and Google.com
Privacy – Where art thou?
0Today, I am commenting on a story published on Techcrunch. Below is a small clip from it:
TechCrunch.com: Life Recorders May Be This Century’s Wrist Watch
“Imagine a small device that you wear on a necklace that takes photos every few seconds of whatever is around you, and records sound all day long. It has GPS and the ability to wirelessly upload the data to the cloud, where everything is date/time and geo stamped and the sound files are automatically transcribed and indexed.”
To this story, I say, Privacy, Where Art Thou? Michael Arrington, owner of Techcrunch and author of this piece does a great job of capturing the privacy concerns of this type of device and I do not wish to rehash them…BUT I MUST!
To be fair, Arrington is really just writing about ideas that have been hatched at Microsoft Research, See their Introduction to SenseCam.
This is a great example of technology that simply does not need to exist simply because it can exist. Just because we could make a toy like this and even because someone might actually want one does not mean that it should be permitted to live.
I am a firm believer in freedom. I am also a firm believer of the idea that your freedom to swing your own arms ends exactly at the point that I become concerned that they might hit my head. A device like this – always on, always recording, always invading passerby’s privacy – is just plain wrong.
Want a good example of this balance in practice? Got a Blackberry? Do you use it’s voice recorder? I do many times a day. Have you ever tried to use it to record a telephone call? You can’t. The voice recorder stops recording and asks you which you want – the call or the recorder – if you try to do it. Why? Because it is just plain wrong to enable a complete invasion of privacy based upon only one party’s desires. This is the exact same situation.
I think this should not be developed and the idea should simply be abandoned.
What do you, Information Professionals, think of this device? Please read up on the photo link to Microsoft to get a feel for how far along this actually is as a possibility. Do you think that I am being naive here? Is this inevitable?
That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for September 8, 2009.
Image credit: Microsoft Research
News Commentary: The Digital Neighborhood Inversion
0On Sundays I offer comments on some of the most interesting information technology stories that I have found on the web that week. Please feel free to join in the discussion or suggest stories during the week.
This week’s story is from Associated Newspapers Ltd in the UK and it discusses a very unique, Information Age trend that I recognize all around me. We are all starting to know more about our distant friends via Twitter, Facebook, and Email, than we know about our local neighbors. I think that the author of this commentary did a wonderful job of putting the problem into words. I recommend that you give it a good read. Check it out here:
Associated Newspapers Ltd – I’ve got 668 ‘friends’ on Facebook… but I don’t know any of my neighbors
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1234932/Ive-got-668-friends-Facebook–I-dont-know-neighbours.html#ixzz0ZZaHTOLu
I find myself in this same situation, too. I move a lot for work… eleven times in 20 years… and it definitely seems like it is getting harder and harder to meet the local neighbors. The fault is certainly 90% mine, but I also don’t really feel like I am alone. There just does not seem to be the same social customs involved with new people moving into the area that there once was. I guess that if you define our community to the Internet, then we are all just digital migrants and therefore we may never actually be home… or move at all.
What do you think about this topic? Do you agree or disagree with me? Do you have a recommended news story for next week? Please share your ideas below.
That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for December 13, 2009 by Scott Coughlin.
Image Credit: faqs.org