An inch closer to the end of privacy (thanks Facebook!)

April 25, 2010 By Robert Scoble

Facebook Logo Pandora logo

If the end of privacy is so evil, so awful, so unthinkable, then why am I liking the new Pandora so much?

See, in the past three days since Facebook announced major new changes to its social contract with all of us, I’ve been able to study my friends’ personal musical tastes in a way I couldn’t just four days ago.

Here, come on over to the new Pandora on my screen. I click on “Friends’ Music” and now let’s look through what I can see.

I see that Aaron Roe Fulkerson, MindTouch’s Inc founder and CEO, listened to Toad the Wet Sprocket. I bet he didn’t quite realize that I’d be able to see that a week ago.

I see that Adrian Otto, chief of research at the Rackspace Cloud (where I work at), listens to Kenny G. I bet he didn’t quite realize that I’d be able to see that a week ago. Aside: Kenny G, really dude? Heheh.

I see that Alan Cooper, father of Visual Basic, and head of a famous software design studio that bears his name, listens to the Barenaked Ladies. I bet he didn’t quite realize that I’d be able to see that a week ago.

Should I keep going? I have 1,300 friends over on Facebook and a lot of them use Pandora.

To me this is freaking awesome. I have found more music in the past week than I’ve found in the past year.

Oh, yeah, and you can see my own account and see how my musical tastes are changing thanks to this new feature.

But, on the other hand, this new feature has heralded a new age where we move closer to the end of privacy.

While listening to music that now is shared by all my friends I’ve been reading thousands of words about how Facebook screwed its contract with us to keep our stuff private.

Here’s one thread from DeWitt Clinton that talks about why he deleted his Facebook account. Here’s a story on Techcrunch about a bunch of Google employees leaving Facebook. And finally, here’s yet another thread, started by Louis Gray, about those employees leaving Facebook (in the comments there I lay out why Google’s employees made the wrong decision).

If you read those posts — and all the comments in them — you’ll see that there’s a lot of people who are very disappointed with Facebook’s moves pushing us all to be more public.

Personally I have not taken a good stance on this lately in public.

First, what has been my public stance? Privacy is dead.

Why did I take that stance? Because, personally, I’m bored with the discussion about privacy.

Why am I bored?

Because the people who are against having their previously-private stuff shared with the world (whether it was when Google Buzz shared my email connections that I made in Gmail with everyone, or it was when Facebook forced everyone to accept being public and to reconfigure their privacy settings and, in some cases, taking away a few ways to keep their stuff between them and their friends) don’t discuss is my Pandora example above. They don’t admit that there’s a lot of goodness that comes from pushing us to be more public with our lives.

The truth is I — as a user — get more features everytime the industry moves us toward a more public world.

Google did this when they put a cookie on my machine that nearly never expired. I remember employees at Microsoft thinking that that was a horrid move against their privacy (they knew that that meant that their surfing behavior could be studied by Google at a rate that Microsoft’s search engine wouldn’t be able to do because Microsoft had a stricter stance toward protection of privacy). I remember telling those employees to get over it and that soon our entire online lives would be shared and that Google would gain massive adoption because of the features that afforded it.

Google is NOT blameless here. They have moved us a long way toward a world where we have no privacy. Even Google’s CEO’s home address was shared with the world via Google. Today we are sharing that kind of data with each other all the time as we post stuff with geotags applied to it or check in on Foursquare or Gowalla.

But last week was about Facebook’s moves and Facebook pushed us another inch toward the cliff of no more privacy. Is that scary? Well, yes! But is it good too? Well, yes! Here, listen to my Pandora music again and tell me you don’t like being able to study my previously-private life in even more glorious detail.

The truth of the matter is that we are going to live our lives from now on — at least in part — in public and we need a new kind of privacy contract with the companies that use our data.

Tonight we started that discussion where I asked my Twitter followers what the last bastion of privacy is?

We ended up that the last bastion of privacy is control. I recorded an audio CinchCast to talk about that. Control of the ability to tell our life’s story.

In that audio I told you that we are no longer in control of how our life’s story gets shared with others. For some, like me, we’ve crossed over to where we accept that loss of control. Others still hold onto the — in my view, mistaken — belief that they can control what others learn about them.

That is privacy: control of our human story. Last week Facebook took something we thought we had control of and gave it away. That pisses off a lot of people, but on the other hand, I gotta say I am loving my new Pandora music that that change brought to me.

And thus we have moved an inch closer to the end of privacy whether you like it or not.

So, now what?

1. We need new skills to deal with our new lack of privacy. How do we make sure Facebook doesn’t share what we don’t want shared? There’s lots of discussion on that around the web but we need more.
2. We need a more nuanced discussion about privacy. It’s not just about “never take my private stuff and make it public.” If it were, we wouldn’t have gotten the new Pandora features we just got last week.
3. We need more control over our data so that we can easily figure out what is going where. With Facebook it’s hard to figure that out now (I solved that by just making everything I do public, but others don’t want to live the same way I do).
4. What else? Add your thoughts to the conversation and what privacy means to you.

Talk to you later, I’m off to meet Thomas Hawk where we’ll walk around a car show in Half Moon Bay — in public — and take pictures. You’re welcome to join us. Bring your stash of great music. Oh, yeah, bring your iPhones!

Filed Under: Web

manielse

Jesse, segregation of information types through anonymity is a form of privacy. We all use different systems and share information in different ways, each web app was an ACL for the user to administer. This could have been as simple as using different usernames. Facebook just eliminated that role based option the way it just implemented its Graph API. Personally, my online privacy doesn't bother me that much but auto opt-in services that affect privacy to the user should be made illegal as I wrote here because it's Deceptive – http://bit.ly/9GBBW5
http://philbaumann.com philbaumann

Agree – it's important we don't confuse the essence of Privacy with mere data. Privacy and Dignity are importantly intertwined. If Privacy dies, what happens to Dignity? Will we say “Dignity is dead”? If you get rid of Dignity, Humanity isn't far behind and Civilization collapses.

Not all of us (who understand and “get it” with regard to the Web's effects on Privacy) are willing to sacrifice the larger meanings of Privacy.
herbal3121

An inch closer to the end of privacy (thanks Facebook!) very good & informative article.
http://twitter.com/AustinHinkle Austin Hinkle

Really interesting post thanks alot – first time commenting on your posts but I read your blog all the time. Really insightful. I think the privacy debate needs to shift in a few ways. I think the concern is less and less over what information is 'embarrassing' and needs to be more about what is risky.

I recently had a conversation with a practicing attorney, probably in her late 30s early 40s, who was lamenting how facebook would let anyone see pictures of her in a bikini at the beach if she used it. But I think that is the great part, that everytime we feel ashamed of something that becomes public (bad test grade, losing your super secret iphone, or pictures in a swim suit) you can look around and find a million other people in the same boat. All of a sudden its more difficult to feel ashamed and easier to identify with people in similar places. We all see each others dirty laundry so to speak and in doing so realize it isn't so dirty after all (Well Kenny G is pretty dull but thats ok).

But what i do worry about is certain groups having access to some of this information. Specifically, I worry alot about the government having access. But we start from an assumption that the government should be able to use whatever information about people that is public knowledge (or in the case of technology widely used technology). Afterall, the government is the only ones who can physically control us. But the same is true for certain industries. While I can imagine a world where having my genetic data available could make some great services for me (food tailoring, disease prevention, ect) I certainly dont what my heath insurance provider to have that information and make decisions about what they will cover (it sorta defeats the utility).

I guess I'll I'm trying to say, is piggybacking on your advice of having new tools to manage our information, we need to have a conversation about who should be allowed to use this data regardless of the individuals privacy setting on facebook.
mos

So then those who are willing to do something about it suffer because others are either lazy or ignorant of ramifications. great.
http://www.realestatesuccesstools.com/ MatthewHardy

Subjugation: some future government nationalizes social media. Getting easier and easier.
http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

Agreed, forced sharing appears to be stepping on the rights of the individual, driven by corporate opportunities and profit. The status of public/private needs to be clearly stated up front, and there should be legal repercussions based on scamming membership.

Personally, I just assume all my web interactions are public and it's easier to move forward. Also I want to build tools that take advantage of public networks and make that information clear up front.
http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

I was haunted by thoughts of Little Shop of Horrors earlier in thinking about the deal I was making with Facebook, the identity and social web leaders. We're feeding Facebook information in exchange for the chance at advanced visibility. In our desperation to become heard, to become visible, we have sold the identity of our visitors to the public, in this case Facebook.

I like Robert turned everything public on Facebook a while back just so there'd be no confusion on my part whom could see what. Living in public brings a lens on our duplicitous nature, so we're coerced into becoming more consistent with our online presence. Personally I appreciate this, but I can imagine a range of folks that don't want their private persona's mixing with their public image. It's precisely why I'm honest in just about every situation, I never have to remember a complexity of half truths.
http://www.famebook.com famebook

I am less concerned with the issue of privacy than I am with the question of ownership. Facebook or Google trading my information is no different to AT&T recording and selling my phone conversations. Somewhere there must be a great lawyer who can explain to me why this isn't theft? Similarly, ubiquity as a defense is like the Catholic Church saying child abuse is okay, beacuse we're religious… If the altruistic goal is an open web, then let Jimmy Wales give us a Wiki Social platform…
lucas

I read this article, then went and hooked Pandora and FB together. Perhaps I don't consider this a privacy issue. Now, if my credit score and SSN were sent to FB every time I click the thumbs up on Pandora I would care. What is personal information? If Kenny G sells 5 million albums and there are only 20 million CD buyers in the U.S., I could assume 1 of the 4 guys in my cube farm likes him. Cuz, it ain't me… Or maybe it is. I guess if I think about it, there is that one song which is kinda nice to listen to…
FU

I shouldn’t have to discuss with anyone what I want to keep private. It’s none of your business. If Corporations are going to take over control of my Internet data then I’ll leave. They took control of telegraph, telephone, radio and TV communication and they aren’t gonna take control over my personal data. It’s bad enough our elected representatives gave away the gateway to Internet and I have to access it through a Corporation. And you giving away your personal data just so you get more music choices?!!? What kind of sickf are u?
ginger2010

Technology isn’t going to change human nature. We, as individuals and groups, still have circumstances where privacy and anonymity is essential. This is a human desire and need which all the facebooks and advertisers in the web-o-sphere aren’t going to be able to change.

I believe there are a lot of techno geniuses who want to make money in IT today, and from there we’ll get platforms which give us the control we need. People will gravitate towards those and away from public non-controllable systems like facebook. Facebook will become the haven of uncool people because the cool people will be in a place where they have control. Niche places. Not mainstream.

It’s true that most people right now aren’t really aware of what they are giving away. But, they’ll get it. All you need is one lost job interview, one rejected mortgage application, one failed marriage, one angry ex hacking your email account, one stalker, or one situation of identity theft, to realize how hellish a give-away of your privacy can be.

It may take a few years, but I think we’ll figure it out. Until then, people in our Internet generation, including young people, are going to get burned. We have a lot of stuff out there and we don’t really understand what’s happening. That’s the sad thing.
manielse

Mark, you and I (and pretty much anyone who reads Scoble's blog) are OK with the assumption that our web interactions are public. But for the average Facebook user, I don't think their assumptions are the same nor would I want to expose any information of theirs that they consider personal just because we are linked. I spoke to a friend of mine just this week (who is in IT) and mentioned the link between Facebook and Pandora, I mentioned the bands he was listening to and he freaked out that I knew that he was a fan of certain bands. He deleted his Facebook account on Friday. Linking systems without the user creating that action surprises innocent people, you as a consumer should never be surprised in what info is exposed to others. This 1to1 exposure risk can really hurt someone in some cases and some people will not know until too late. We need to protect people from that unexpected exposure.
http://apatontheback.com Jodi Henderson

Man, who's got time to go exploring all their friends' likes and dislikes, photos, etc? It can be interesting and all, but I can't think of a bigger time-waster than stuff like this. It's almost not about the privacy issue anymore (that's a whole other soapbox for me); it's about giving people yet more stuff to look at and more crap to crowd out the signals with. Am I the only one who doesn't have time for this?
http://apatontheback.com Jodi Henderson

I agree!!! I think this is why I like the Twitter paradigm….I share what I want when I want and it's not all personal info.
http://twitter.com/adir1 Adi Rabinovich

Specifically about Music – Zune Social had this over a year ago, as I recall. In fact, it's fancier – as it uploads your music listening history from offline device, once you sync. So you could be thinking you listening offline in your private little space, but it gets published later to the world.
Though, I welcome it – we just all need to learn to manage this new found publicity we all got.
EricaGlasier

The other side of that is the little pause that I now do before every commitment I make on the web. Do I really “like” something, enough to commit to it forever? Do I need to search that embarrassing medical problem—if my search was revealed to everyone?

The names-attached social web is forcing us to construct identities we want to upkeep, and not all of that is 100% honest.
http://twitter.com/sarahintampa Sarah Perez

Was just thinking this same thing! Pandora's instant personalization is great, actually. But at what point does this go from cool to creepy? Should be interesting to watch this unfold.
EricaGlasier

Jesse, that's a good point. Thanks for this insight. Scaling back anonymity provides a more civil platform from which to speak; it's our expectations built on an anonymous web that are causing the confusion.
http://twitter.com/pcmguy Larry Bruce

The real question is are they doing it on purpose or is it just a bunch of coders who think this is just the logical right way to do it. Disigning software as long as I have, I must say I too have put together some pretty hard to use software in my day.

It is easy to think this just seems logical to you. That is why I am now a big fan of user testing and feedback sites, not sure Facebook or other use them though.
jeunellefoster

Lately I've been enjoying my private Posterous account. I actually have a public posterous account and a private posterous account where I only invite a select group of people to share the real dirt. Posterous really has a goldmine there and I wish they would focus on improving it even more, it can really come in handy in times like these where we are pushed to become way too public. It's like we would have to wear two masks during the day. One for keeping up appearances and the other to run wild and naked down a dark alley both I've probably already done in this lifetime.
http://www.facebook.com/jayadevc Jayadev Chandrasekhar

Loved this post
http://www.pacebutler.com/ Pace Butler

A good move by Facebook really Exciting news. Congrats to all the developers who worked on these features.
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http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

Wonderful first comment Austin, and Robert's blog is a great place to communicate with sharp folks. Your mention of governement control and public information being used by health companies is spot on. These are big issues we have to come to terms with. Is it worth disclosing my DNA? Are there anonymous DNA health insurance providers that charge a premium (that would make sense to me).
http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

Good counterview Erica. There are long term consequences of web interactions made in public. The good news is that we can always unlike something later (and we should always have that ability). The utility of the social web is bordering on our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. This crosses into government utilities which are regulated.
http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

I think the argument is that your conversation is happening in public as opposed to your phone call.
twiigg

Facebook is the poster child but not the enemy – afterall they will likely become as dull as AOL in 10 Years.

What's fundamental here is Privacy in its current form is dead. We need to put parameters that can be controlled by US the USER and not THEM the Company,Government or Website. That means assigning control to your content as specified by you but also we should take responsibility that not all content should be shared and not all websites have appropriate controls for sharing.

We are building a solution to help users control and manage all their data sharing experiences, keeping us safer and making in control of our information.

We would welcome you as part of our BETA program launching this summer, Please sign up at http://www.twiigg.com
http://www.marketingformavens.com Chris

It's funny, in 1996 we didn't want to share our birthday's and many wouldn't make a purchase online. That seems laughable now. The same holds true with today's privacy concerns. The benefits will out-way the negatives. We'll get over it. We'll share even more of our selves. In 10 years we'll look back at 2010 and laugh about our privacy concerns while we complain about the next big thing that makes us even more open to the public. The cycle continues…
matthewhuber

1) Do you really think everyone is so mundane as to have nothing that they might want to share with some but guard from others? Saying don't put it on the “the internet” is ridiculous; why shouldn't there be private spaces as well as public online? Facebook used to bill itself as such a space for friends.

2) Often people give away information about themselves in ways which is not obvious. Knowing who someone's friends are or who posts on which wall how often conveys quite a lot of information.

3) Information released on the Internet persists perhaps long after the current organizations and governments that safeguard us from abuse have changed their minds.

For example, my friend is gay. His employer is a conservative Christian, and in Florida it is legal for the company to fire my friend for being gay. Even if it were illegal perhaps he would still be at risk for quiet discrimination. Should he avoid using Facebook to communicate with his openly gay friends because of the risk some computer program might look a his social graph and figure out that he is gay and has lots of atheist friends? You could ask the same question for critics of the Iranian government, people with rare diseases, people who are critical of the Tea Party, etc. In the future Madame Defarge won't need a quilt; she can just use Facebook.

I just can't take white, straight, middle-class, politically mainstream people who have never experienced or feared discrimination seriously when they make the “what do you have to hide?” argument.
http://lnxwalt.wordpress.com/ lnxwalt

I see that as a threat. Imagine it is the 1960s. “The man” wishes to squash dissent, so he can ship more 18 year olds to Southeast Asia. Protest music on Pandora shows up on one's Facebook profile, telling the man who to target with enforcement efforts.

Honestly, Robert, you of all people should be thinking through this more than anyone. It disappoints me to see that you aren't.

Unauthorized dissemination and use of someone's private info like that is offensive and dangerous. “Opt out” is unprincipled and offensive. This type of sharing should *always* be opt-in.

All you've shown is that Facebook (and Pandora, for that matter) cannot be trusted–that I need to completely remove them from my life and (within the limits allowed by the TOS) seek to have my stored data deleted.

For those of you who have similar concerns, NY Senator Charles Schumer has asked the FTC to investigate and come up with recommended guidelines for handling private, personal information. I would suggest that you contact your senators and representatives and ask them to join Sen. Schumer in this pursuit.
http://lnxwalt.wordpress.com/ lnxwalt

Jesse, there is no freedom of expression where there is no anonymity. Neither is there any privacy. The two are deeply intertwined and unseparable.

People are uncivil when they don't have the sense that they are communicating with someone like them, whether that is in meatspace, over the telephone, by snail mail, or in cyberspace. If you don't believe that, ask any black person who has been stopped merely because of his color. People are also uncivil when they work in formless organizations and are constrained by company policies.

Now imagine Facebook tying Foursquare data to that opt-out public profile. Now that creepy janitor at your daughter's junior high knows when you're sitting in Starbucks over a latte while she's sitting at home. Or your college-age son's political views being linked and a prospective employer dropping you because of it. Or your neighbors picketing your house because you were interested in a new, eclectic religious group.

The reason that the Web works for most people is because they have more-or-less separate identities for the different parts of their personalities. This pernicious aggegation will hurt web users, and eventually the web itself. As I said before, Facebook's anti-privacy actions are a threat to us all.
http://staynalive.com Jesse Stay

Inxwalt (love the anonymous name), the advantage of Facebook is you have the
ability to be as anonymous, or as real as you like. Want to keep the creepy
Janitor from knowing where you are? Just don't publish to him. Privacy
equals control. Anonymity means that creepy Janitor can be someone else and
deceive. The more real he has to be, the safer place it is for your
daughter.

There is plenty of freedom of expression with privacy – in fact, there are
numerous, endless ways to express when you have proper privacy controls in
place. With anonymity, there is only one way – you express to everyone or
nothing. Privacy *gives* us freedom to express how we want (and some times
that can be to everyone). Anonymity takes it away.
http://www.facebook.com/mike.hartman Mike Hartman

Jesse, everything in that last comment makes perfect sense if you're using an idealized purple-unicorns-and-fluffy-bunnies version of Facebook that does not in fact exist.

Sure, the whole reason I joined Facebook was because I could share certain things with certain friends in a fairly controlled way. It let me keep up with real-life acquaintances that I don't see or talk to often, and let them do the same with me. It lowered the cost of maintaining contact, with the result that fewer relationships stagnated due to distance or lack of time. But the whole point was the control. If I thought all those things were so important it was worth making significant portions of my life completely public, I would have just created a blog or something.

Facebook's main mission lately seems to be squeezing me out of any control I had. It's opting me into things by default, sharing too much when it does, sharing my info even when I've opted out just because my friends didn't… It's ridiculous. “Opt out” policy alone makes a mockery of “control”. If I have to find out about a new feature, wait for it to go live, and then track down a semi-hidden privacy preference to protect my data, then it's not protected. The entire period from feature launch to activating the privacy control, my data is just flapping out there in the breeze.

All these fine-grained privacy controls that are supposed to be the whole point of Facebook over similar networks are dying.
http://www.facebook.com/mike.hartman Mike Hartman

Didn't Facebook start out as the private Facebook?
http://www.facebook.com/mike.hartman Mike Hartman

Many people didn't want to make purchases online in the '90s because they had questions about fundamental security. Time and effort have laid most of those questions to rest.

Many people have issues with these new features because there are questions about who gets to see that data, who controls that data, and what the long-term consequences are. Those questions have no been answered yet (or if they have the answers have been disturbing).

To assume that people will continue to publicly broadcast ever more private information just because you think that's been the trend for the last ten years or so is pretty simplistic. By that logic the car ahead of me at the stoplight earlier should have crashed into the McDonald's doing 120 because it was steadily accelerating during the period I was paying attention to it. Conditions change, perceptions change, people use these things called brakes.
http://staynalive.com Jesse Stay

The point is you still have control though, Mike. No controls were taken
away from you this last week. A new feature was added in which you could
opt-in to liking things on participating sites, but still, the actual “like”
process has to be a click from you to be tracked. Any other information
that can be gathered about you is opt-out. At least you have that option.
It was given to you before you needed to block that information going to
those sites. And even if you didn't, at default, only your name, location,
and profile image, along with list of friends were exposed in that process.
Nothing else. Facebook is still just as safe as ever, and they have proven
to provide even *more* privacy controls over time, not less. You can select
specific groups of people to post status updates to, for instance. That
feature wasn't there 3 months ago.

I think Facebook has made their intentions clear that they *want* you to
have that control. They've made you aware of what publicly available data
they're going to expose, but beyond that, you've got a whole lot of control
you don't have elsewhere, and I only see that improving over time.
Facebook's entire premise is privacy. I don't see that going away, or
slowing down in the future.
Google

SKKKYYYYYYNETTTTTTTTTT
http://www.google.com/profiles/Strodtbeck.C Charles

While I may trust the site I sign up with (Google, Facebook, etc.) I do not necessarily trust the sites they decide to give my information to. This is one reason I prefer Google over Facebook. While the “personal” integration is great I prefer the site that has my info to pull info to me and not push my info out to the world (like Facebook is constantly trying to do).

Didn’t we learn this lesson with traditional marketing? As soon as one “trusted” vendor gets your info they give it to a couple “trusted third party vendors” and of course at least one of them sells it to anyone and everyone because they really aren’t that trustworthy and they know that no one can know who sold it.

What? One of Facebook’s third party sites sells it and when asked if they did they are going to say, yes? No, they won’t and we won’t know if they did or didn’t. That’s the problem. It’s a slippery slope once you push personal info outside of the company walls. This is one instance where the “walled garden” is a good thing, IMO.
http://www.marketingformavens.com Chris

Yes, I simplified it quite a bit but I think it will hold true.

People will continue to publicly broadcast even more private data because over time we become numb to it. Privacy is eroding and I don't see an end in sight. We get upset with Facebook and Google because they are pushing the limits but there are countless companies flying under the radar. Do people realize the amount of data that Adobe and Omniture collect? How about Eloqua, SalesForce, and Baynote? What about xobni?

I'd be worrying less about the companies that are making this public and worrying more about the ones that are collecting the data in private. It only takes an email address to connect someone across thousands of databases and this is being done in hundreds of companies worldwide and it's getting more prevalent.

I agree with you that there are questions that need to be answered. Facebook, Google, and everyone else need to be clear on how they use the information. I really wish that all of these new features would be opt-in and not opt-out. There needs to be checks and balances. But for so many to flat out dismiss and become angered over these features is a bit much. For us to reach the next phase of the web (the right-time web, semantic web, synaptic web, etc.) this data is crucial and beneficial to all of us.
http://lnxwalt.wordpress.com/ lnxwalt

In the three weeks I've been on Facebook, I've had to lock down the same settings multiple times. Things I set to “friends only” get reset to “everyone” with no prior notice.

So, no users are *not* in control.
ScottChambers

What interests me specifically about the death of privacy will be more how the information is going to be used. Please read and comment on my blog entry “Metadata Mining: Beyond Adwords” http://tinyurl.com/3yaom8s

Scott Chambers
http://masselaboration.tumblr.com
http://jeffkorhan.com Jeff Korhan

This is exactly why the article I wrote over the weekend was entitled: Facebook LIKE is like an Open Book.

People can kick and scream or just accept the fact that our lives will be an open book, if they aren't by now!
Penny Nelson

At least facebook has some form of privacy controls. I think privacy will end because sites like http://www.dirtyphonebook.com don’t even bother asking for consent anymore before posting something about another.
http://www.isights.org/ Michael Long

If you're going to “like” something, then why not a “dislike” button? Or love it, hate it, could care less, button? Ratings are the logical next step/
http://www.isights.org/ Michael Long

There's “dirty laundry” in the global context, and there's “dirty laundry” in the personal context. Yeah, you can see that there are others in the same boat. So what?

That doesn't help when your employee, or your friends, or your school, or your community is judging you and holding your personal life against you. Gay? Have cancer? AIDs? Like rope and handcuffs? Have a criminal record? Reading “banned” books? Totally against the current political party?

Sometimes the discrimination can be open. And at other times you may be wondering why you keep getting passed over for promotions. Or wondering about the real reason you were fired. Or why you can't get a job or insurance coverage.

“Everyone” may be doing it, but people may still hold the fact that you're doing it against you. Or worse, use it against you.
http://www.isights.org/ Michael Long

“We can always unlike something later…”

Can we? They said they deleted it… but did they? Maybe it's still there, just hidden? Or did someone else (government, credit agency, insurance company) record and store that fact about you?

If it was once visible, then in all likelihood it exists. In many places. Permanently.

To think that it can be controlled, regulated, or that you can always just “undo it” is foolish.
http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

Without the ability to change one's sentiment in the dynamic web, the tool is worthless.
http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

It would be nice if all that nifty sentiment and personalized data was under the full control of each web browser (perhaps stored in a neutral / encrypted locale?). As in, not even Facebook would have access to identifying Jess likes bacon, unless you allowed that specific entity access. It's silly though, because as soon as one open source knows, the Net knows.

An inch closer to the end of privacy (thanks Facebook!)

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