Comments on: Your Personal Data and whether Google knows all http://weblog.terrellrussell.com/2007/05/your-personal-data-and-whether-google-knows-all/ Ideas on interconnections, identity, and information from all sides. Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:10:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Hat tip to Terrell and Fred « Ubiquity http://weblog.terrellrussell.com/2007/05/your-personal-data-and-whether-google-knows-all/#comment-19693 Hat tip to Terrell and Fred « Ubiquity Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:27:13 +0000 http://weblog.terrellrussell.com/2007/05/your-personal-data-and-whether-google-knows-all/#comment-19693 [...] tip to Terrell and Fred Published July 17th, 2007 Uncategorized Musings on Google, Twitter, and privacy from the guys who brought you [...] [...] tip to Terrell and Fred Published July 17th, 2007 Uncategorized Musings on Google, Twitter, and privacy from the guys who brought you [...]

]]> By: jkd http://weblog.terrellrussell.com/2007/05/your-personal-data-and-whether-google-knows-all/#comment-13430 jkd Fri, 25 May 2007 17:25:52 +0000 http://weblog.terrellrussell.com/2007/05/your-personal-data-and-whether-google-knows-all/#comment-13430 So, as the MSFT case showed, using existing antitrust legislation to deal with electronic monopolies isn't really practical. If anything, breaking up GOOG would be less effective than the planned splitting of MSFT, creating a whole bunch of monopolies in different sectors that would each have incentive to take their own cut off the top, creating a less-integrated and more-expensive and burdensome user experience. And they'd still have all our data. What we need, I think, is a Citizen EULA/Terms of Service. Most of the EULAs and ToSes are boilerplate anyways - and people (except for us) don't ever read them. And they esp. don't read the "we reserve the right to change any and everything without telling you" part of the EULAs and ToSes. That, at a minimum, has to go: a EULA/ToS is a <i>contract</i>, wherein the software/service provider is provisioning a service/product for a fee, even if it's not money - and as more and more people are realizing, disclosure of personal information is a kind of fee. Unilateral changes in EULAs/ToSes should be treated as what they are - a breach of contract. Then there's the matter of making users aware of what they're agreeing to, and I think that standardization is the way to go, here. The Free Documentation License is a good start, but making it even more human-readable (e.g., having available the graphical + human + machine + lawyer - readable versions of the same license as CC does) would be good. How to accomplish this? Legislation would be... problematic, but ultimately I think will be necessary. But first, there really needs to be better public awareness of just what people are giving away. And given the general public disgust/fear of ID theft, I'm not above doing a little bit of fear-mongering in the service of that goal - because they <i>should</i> be afraid. So, as the MSFT case showed, using existing antitrust legislation to deal with electronic monopolies isn’t really practical. If anything, breaking up GOOG would be less effective than the planned splitting of MSFT, creating a whole bunch of monopolies in different sectors that would each have incentive to take their own cut off the top, creating a less-integrated and more-expensive and burdensome user experience. And they’d still have all our data.

What we need, I think, is a Citizen EULA/Terms of Service. Most of the EULAs and ToSes are boilerplate anyways - and people (except for us) don’t ever read them. And they esp. don’t read the “we reserve the right to change any and everything without telling you” part of the EULAs and ToSes. That, at a minimum, has to go: a EULA/ToS is a contract, wherein the software/service provider is provisioning a service/product for a fee, even if it’s not money - and as more and more people are realizing, disclosure of personal information is a kind of fee.

Unilateral changes in EULAs/ToSes should be treated as what they are - a breach of contract.

Then there’s the matter of making users aware of what they’re agreeing to, and I think that standardization is the way to go, here. The Free Documentation License is a good start, but making it even more human-readable (e.g., having available the graphical + human + machine + lawyer - readable versions of the same license as CC does) would be good.

How to accomplish this? Legislation would be… problematic, but ultimately I think will be necessary. But first, there really needs to be better public awareness of just what people are giving away. And given the general public disgust/fear of ID theft, I’m not above doing a little bit of fear-mongering in the service of that goal - because they should be afraid.

]]> By: Rvrseppala http://weblog.terrellrussell.com/2007/05/your-personal-data-and-whether-google-knows-all/#comment-13412 Rvrseppala Fri, 25 May 2007 15:14:45 +0000 http://weblog.terrellrussell.com/2007/05/your-personal-data-and-whether-google-knows-all/#comment-13412 Well, are we actually posting such interesting information that anyone will want to get it? Of course there are a lot of security issues, but I think most people are overestimating how interesting and informative their Twitters are to others. For the security part, I definitely think that most people are not informed enough and don't care enough about their personal information. But I think not using Google is maybe going a bit too far. Or what are you actually doing on the internet? Well,
are we actually posting such interesting information that anyone will want to get it? Of course there are a lot of security issues, but I think most people are overestimating how interesting and informative their Twitters are to others. For the security part, I definitely think that most people are not informed enough and don’t care enough about their personal information.

But I think not using Google is maybe going a bit too far. Or what are you actually doing on the internet?

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