I’m siding with you on this one, Mike. I think “privacy” is a convenient excuse to use for Facebook not wanting to share their piece of the data portability pie. If privacy were such a dire issue for FB, they wouldn’t have security flawed apps all up in their community.

This is stage one. Hopefully in stage two, companies will wake up to the value chain of information and realise “storing” your data is not what gives you a competitive advantage: http://liako.biz/2008/05/the-v.....formation/

Their Friend Connect product does just that, and makes them an important data middle man. That position can later be leveraged intensely. In fact, in many ways Google can become the most important social network without actually having a social network.

Totally agree. And I don’t believe that Zuckerberg doesn’t get this as well, I think this purely weak leadership on his part and bowing to all the wrong kinds of pressure again.

Nail. Head. Clunk!

Great post Mike.

I agree. But Data Portability is only a first step towards what we all need: exactly like OpenID, we need a (non-profit) host for our data whom we trust. Then, Facebook, Google and MySpace beg for accessing our data thru the standards treated at DataPortabilty. It will never work as long as a commercial enterprise like these players has as well as wants to keep and host our data.
OpenID providers must extend their service to those worked on by DP: they must become user-centric profile and ID managers.

Comment #3 by Manufacturer is a direct quote from the blog and points to a Chinese and Asian trade directory. Spam?

Mike,

interesting, however a real question is Building data and active users require passion and effort. If any social network (facebook,orkut…etc) has put millions of dollar in building data, platform and active users (which are their main assets !), Its very funny to give it away to any third party.

-Raxit

Mike, I think you are confusing things.

Here, let me try to unwind your words:

YOU: “The fact is, this isn’t Facebook’s data. It’s my data.”

What is your data? Your photos? Yes. Your videos? Yes. Your own contact info? Yes. Your wall posts? Yes, but if you try taking them somewhere else without everyone else’s wall posts they’ll be pretty useless. Your social network (IE, +MY+ data?) Well, let’s talk about that.

YOU: “So when Robert Scoble wrote this evening that Google is in the wrong”

I never said that. I just was trying to say that Facebook has been consistent and does have a point.

YOU: “By blocking Google, Facebook has blocked ME. And that, frankly, kind of frustrates me.”

It frustrated me too. You’re my friend. You gave me access to your email address. Yet I can’t use that email address outside of Facebook the way I want to use it? Frustrating.

Keep in mind an email address has absolutely NO UTILITY inside Facebook. So, why not let your friends take email addresses out of Facebook after you’ve given them implicit permission to do so by BOTH friending them AND giving them access to your email address?

Hint: Facebook doesn’t want to open up and give other social networks access to your data. We are on the same side here, I just was trying to explain the other side tonight.

>In that case, it wasn’t his data and he didn’t have the right to make it portable.

That’s bullshit Mike.

You friended me. You gave me your email address. What, am I just supposed to look at your email address in Facebook and say “what a nice email address?” No, you wanted me to have access to your email address so I could potentially send you email!!!

Yet now you say you don’t want me to use your email address because it’s “yours.” Well, to that I give you the same answer you gave to Wired. Two words and one of them starts with an “F.”

>He thinks his new position shows that he gets the importance of privacy, but once again he isn’t thinking in terms of who really owns the data and should be allowed to make decisions around it.

No, you can’t both sides of this argument.

Either you give me access to your email address to use it, or you don’t. Are you saying that when you 1. Friend me AND 2. Give me your email address that I’m not allowed to use it because it’s “yours?” When you friend me you are giving me permission to use your data. Period. If you don’t want me to use your data, don’t friend me.

But, let’s take your side of it. You want to 1. Friend me AND 2. Let me see your email address, but you don’t want me to scrape that into Plaxo (or Gmail, for that matter, since we’re using Google Friend Connect). Why? Because you want complete control of your data, which is what you’re asking Facebook for.

Do you see the corner you’ve painted yourself into?

That’s right. You want to take MY data out of Facebook and put it into Google’s Friend Connect.

I didn’t give you permission to do that.

You are, by asking Facebook for data portability, taking away MY rights to protect my data.

>Ultimately I hope that I can keep my identity, friend list, photographs, videos and everything else that constitutes the (de)Centralized Me at any service provider that I trust (meaning I trust them to protect that data, but never go against my wishes and try to keep it to themselves if that isn’t what I want), and just tell sites like Facebook and everyone else where to grab it.

Um, but what if, when I friend you, I want to be able to tell you that you can only put my info into Facebook and not into any other system? Shouldn’t that be my right as a user? Has Google’s Friend Connect given me that right?

Just to make this very clear, here’s what I want:

1. I want to be able to take the stuff you give me access to into other systems. Ala, if you give me your birthday, I want to put it on my calendar to remind me to send you a birthday card. If you give me access to your email address, I want to put it into my email program so I can send you email. If you give me your photos I want to be able to take them and put them on a digital picture frame. If you give me your videos I want to be able to put them on my Mac Mini so I can play them at my next party and show everyone all the cool videos you made.

2. I want to have MY stuff federate across all social networks. So, when I change my email address in Facebook from robertscoble@hotmail.com to scobleizer@gmail.com it changes in Facebook, in Flickr, in Gmail, in Outlook, in Plaxo, in Upcoming, in FriendFeed, in Seesmic, in YouTube, and wherever else I’ve entered my email address lately. Same for my photos. If I put a photo on Flickr I’d like that photo to be backed up on SmugMug and on Facebook’s photo area and on MySpace. Those are my photos and I should have control of them. Same for my videos.

3. If you update your email address and I’ve copied it (automatically) to some email app, I want your email address to change. If you decide to delete your email address, it should also delete it from systems that got it through automatic means.

4. I want these systems to respect my wishes. If I give you access to my email address and I don’t give Dave Winer access, I don’t want it to be possible for you to forward my email address through automatic means (of course you’ll be able to tell it to him or email it to him manually).

But it doesn’t really matter. Services like FriendFeed already are manually doing a lot of this stuff anyway and I find I’m spending more and more of my time there rather than in the walled gardens where people give me grief for using their email addresses (like you are here).

So, you’re right, even when you’re wrong.

Alex, your point is very much valid, i think.

-Raxit

Robert,

Copying my twitter (I object to the term “tweet”) here: wow i totally disagree. i give you my email addy because i want you to have it. not for you to give it to whoever

When I give you access to my info, it is because I want YOU to have access to it. I don’t want you to distribute that out, I want to have control of that.

It’s a really fine line between user flexibility and protecting a competitive advantage.

I love Google, but let’s be honest here… They’re pushing for all this data portability amongst social networks because THEY LOST THE GAME. They missed the boat and got left out. Period. So some of their smartest people sat around a table and said, “What can we create as a Plan B to make money from social networks?”

Their answer: OpenSocial and now Friend Connect.

Some argue that “my friend connections are MY data.” Well, not exactly. Many of those connections get created solely from the VALUE that’s built into the system itself.

But the bottom line is, this is all about MONEY. The companies that push the hardest against the walled gardens are the ones on the outside looking in, in almost every case.

BUT YES! LET’S HAVE “OPEN” INITIATIVES…

How about “OpenSearch”… when is Google going to come out with that one? You know, the one where they release an API to their databases and ranking order. I mean “it’s MY data” right? You know, MY CONTENT that they index to create their results. And people that link to my content end up creating part of their algorithm. So why don’t they make it easy to extract their data?

Google won’t because it’s a COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.

How about “OpenAuction”… when is eBay going to open up their database so everything can be extracted and mashed up into other auction sites? I mean, “it’s MY data” right? My items create a “friends list” with certain bidders and other sellers. When are they going to open things up so I can extract that data and even use it to start another auction site? Sure, eBay has an API but it isn’t exactly the same thing.

eBay won’t because it’s a COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.

What about “OpenLove”… when is Match.com going to allow me to extract all that data from all the hot women that I’ve exchanged messages with?

The list goes on, and on, and on.

What’s being overlooked is the true dominant value of CRITICAL MASS. It’s so hard to compete against another company that has reached critical mass in a certain market. Social networking is no exception.

Great post, In the long run it seems like a losing battle for social networks.
It’s just a matter of time before a service arrives offering a fully open application. The moment such a service gains traction current ‘walled gardens” will have no choice but to join. It’s the internet all over again

More importantly many social network sites run on “Advertising” as revenue generation source, and if someone “Pulls” the data, and put advertise then original social network may cut its revenue, (even though data is of original site, $$ goes to agregator site !)

-Raxit
mykavita.com

Mike, I agree with your last comment about decentralizing your data. There’s a rapidly growing market gap for an independent, trusted data broker. Good place for Google to come in, since it doesn’t have a social network of its own. I don’t want to necessarily put all my data into Facebook or Myspace, since I’m conforming my master data source to their data model. It’d be far better to have an independent 3rd party with a flexible data schema which, most importantly, I trust to keep as secure as my bank details.

Personal information is arguably MORE important than my bank details - as a clever person can gain access to my bank details using my personal details.

Scoble: No. No. No.

My id, friend list, photos, etc. is mine, and I should be able to say what to do with it.

My contact information, that i allow you to view in facebook via an image (not free text) is also mine.

In the first case, you think that facebook should be able to stop me from doing what i want with that data (per your post tonight)

In the second case, you think (well, thought) that Facebook should have let YOU take MY data out of Facebook and do stuff with it (including turning into free text) (per your post earlier this year).

You were wrong both times. I was right both times. Think about it, you’ll come to my way of thinking.

>Copying my twitter (I object to the term “tweet”) here: wow i totally disagree. i give you my email addy because i want you to have it. not for you to give it to whoever

I NEVER wanted to give it to anyone else. I ALWAYS wanted to have your email address ONLY if 1. you friended me 2. you gave me access to it. I ALWAYS WAS ONLY GOING TO USE THAT FOR MYSELF. Never to give it to someone else.

>My id, friend list, photos, etc. is mine, and I should be able to say what to do with it.

Agreed. So we’re not fighting about that stuff.

>My contact information, that i allow you to view in facebook via an image (not free text) is also mine.

You are correct. But when you give me the ability to see your email address, don’t you expect I’ll enter that into my email program to send you an email? After all, it has absolutely NO UTILITY inside Facebook, or many other social networks.

>In the first case, you think that facebook should be able to stop me from doing what i want with that data (per your post tonight)

No, I think you misunderstanding what side of the line I’m on.

I believe you should be able to take, say, your friends list from Twitter and import it into, say, FriendFeed. I’m your friend on both places. But what if I change my email address on, say, Twitter (or my photo). Shouldn’t it also change on FriendFeed? If you say yes, then we’re in agreement. Because that’s exactly what I want to happen.

>In the second case, you think (well, thought) that Facebook should have let YOU take MY data out of Facebook and do stuff with it (including turning into free text) (per your post earlier this year).

I WAS ONLY DOING THAT WHEN YOU 1. Friended me 2. Gave me access to your email address and birthday. I wanted to put those two things into Outlook so I could email you tips and birthday wishes and stuff like that.

Robert -

“But when you give me the ability to see your email address, don’t you expect I’ll enter that into my email program to send you an email? After all, it has absolutely NO UTILITY inside Facebook, or many other social networks.”

Nope. I expect it to stay right where it is. If it gets out, it can be posted on the web, etc. I gave it to you under a certain set of rules, and you tried to change those rules.

All points from all sides are equally valid..

It depends on what timeframe and what era..

In the not-too-distant past, “commercial activities” (which were grey areas even back then) were no-no’s for the early Internet (then Arpanet/NSFnet, of the very early 90’s).. and people still remember the term of “AUP” (”acceptable use policies” — yeah, wtf…)

Then comes uunet’s alternet, and psi, then emerged ANS, and CORE (commercial+research&education) for the interconnects… problem solved. Everybody happy.

The data issues of today, of who owns what, and who has what rights, will become moot pretty soon — in fact, very soon.

Rgds,
/ac.

MyMesh:

“All points from all sides are equally valid..”

What. Ever. Pick a side. The side of Good or the side or Wrong.

>Nope. I expect it to stay right where it is. If it gets out, it can be posted on the web, etc. I gave it to you under a certain set of rules, and you tried to change those rules.

That’s bullpucky. That’s like saying “I put my phone number on my blog, but that didn’t mean I actually wanted you to call me.” Sigh.

> My id, friend list, photos, etc. is mine, and I should be
> able to say what to do with it.

I’m with Scobleizer here: if you friend me, you “share” that information. And even as a non-native speaker I think the word implies that is no longer fully and solely yours.
Of course, you are free to change it whenever you want, in that way you still have full control over it.
But I also want to be free to do whatever I want with “my share” of your email - and that includes all the syncing and whathaveyou.
(I could even decide to share it with others - but not only do I think that would be crossing a borderline, it is also a bit off-topic for this discussion)

@6 (Alex).

You make a good point, but I don’t think it needs to be a non-profit. I’ve posted a link to my value chain analysis above which furthers my thinking - I am not claiming to represent the DataPortability project’s members although I am a co-founder that leads the effort so I’ve definitely put some thought into this.

Let’s think about money: you store it in a bank, and you use electronic funds to access it. You don’t need to store some money at the mall; some at the supermarket; and some at the corner store. Electronically, you can utilise your money in the situation where you need it.

Now replace the word money above with data.

The entire web ecosystem is immature in the business sense. “Data lock in” has be the conventional thinking behind building applications - you lock the data, your users won’t move, and your competitors can’t beat you. Efforts have been going on for years to challenge this notion, and by luck, the then DataPortability workgroup was able to crack the mainstream attention of the industry. So what we are seeing is a genuine step forward into the maturity of web applications.

In my value chain analysis, web applications collect data > process the data > generation information from that data > generate knowledge by applying that information. By looking at information like this, we can recognise that at different parts of the value chain, there are different strengths and positions that need to be taken if you choose to compete there.

In the first phase - storage and collection - I very much think this is like traditional (money) banks. If you choose to compete in this area, you need to compete against other “storage” facilities that give a better return for the user - not just in financial cost for them, but also at the data rights cost. Why would a consumer store their data at a bank that forces them to give up some or all control? Competing in the data storage market is going to become commoditised and the winner will be the one that gives the best open deal for a user.

So in reference to your question - we don’t need a non-profit. We can simply just tap into the for-profit incentive system and get the same benefit, using competition as a form of honesty.

But in regards to the moves in the last week, this is like I state above (comment 2) just the beginning. The data storage market is just one area in the value chain - companies need to realise there are potentially more lucrative areas.

wOOt flame war alert!

Michael,

Well, see the logo of RWW… it’s the Tai Chi / Yin Yang thing..

With the good always comes some bad..

After all, the issue at hand has been under a misnomer from day one..

Portability, the incumbent data containers would never like it..

The right way to put it is, it’s all about Data Linkability, for linked data.

More about it when we have some spare time to put it (ie, our site) together…

How about take a different approach here: no one owns your data, not even you.

This whole concept of owning your data is a difficult thing to come to consensus on. Especially when you consider what the definition of data is in the traditional sense: an object with no meaning[1].

Rather than ownership, we should talk about the economic benefits of controlling that data. You don’t own an e-mail address: you simply get the benefit of receiving incoming mail on it. You don’t own your name: you simply own the right to not associate your name in certain contexts.

It’s about controlling the use of data and who that benefits. Ownership is a ‘too hard’ debate and I am involved in it in the DataPortability Policy group so have been down this track. This debate is not going to get settled until we change the frame of the debate into something simpler.

[1] http://wiki.dataportability.org/x/RgkR

>You were wrong both times. I was right both times. Think about it, you’ll come to my way of thinking.

Global Truth

Elias: great point.

What’s my own resolution to all this stuff? I’ve put my phone number and email address on my blog for anyone to use however they want. I figure that way I don’t have to worry about any of these issues and if you send me spam I’ll build a system to deal with that.

@Robert,

You Got it — absolutely..

Both Michael and Robert get into the loophole of “ownership”. “Ownership” is meaningless in the context of intangibles.

You, both being Americans, consider ownership a fundamental property of things. If it *is* someone must *own* it.

But ownership is just a way to describe a common set of rights. Owning a car implies I have certain rights on it. It’s just easier to say “it’s mine” instead of enumerating all my rights. Remember, ownership does not apply to all things. For example it doesn’t apply to humans.

Going into a discussion on who owns a small GIF displaying my email address, automatically generated by a third party service and hosted on their servers makes no sense! What if it’s mine or yours? Does this mean I can’t copy it? I can’t convert it to text? I can’t use the text version to send you an email? It gets even more complicated when the object of dispute is the product of collaboration. Who owns a discussion?

It would make much more sense to talk about rights, not ownership.

>It would make much more sense to talk about rights, not ownership.

Agreed. I’m pretty much there now. But unfortunately Mike convoluted the argument so that we’re not arguing about the rights that really matter anymore.

For instance:

1. Does Facebook have any rights to keep the stuff you entered on Facebook only on Facebook?

2. If other systems want to import data from Facebook, what should the contract be? For instance, let’s say that Google Friend Connect takes email addresses from Facebook. What if a user changes an email address on Facebook? Should it update? How about if that same user changes the email address on Google’s Friend Connect, should it update Facebook? What about if XYZ Social Network wants to import contacts from Google Friend Connect. Should it live by the same rules that Google’s Friend Connect did? IE, if an email address changes on Facebook and it changes on Google’s Friend Connect, does it also change on XYZ Social Network?

3. Let’s say we can all get to the place where names, email addresses, and birthdays are all sharable between systems. How about favorite music and activities you’ve entered? How far will everyone have to go to opening up their social graphs to competitors? What will the differentiation be between all of these social networks? If they all shared everything with each other, what would be different between, say, Facebook and Google Connect? If there’s no differentiation (IE, if Facebook doesn’t know more about you than Google Connect does) then how will Facebook make a profit or have something of value that Google Connect doesn’t also have?

Mike, let’s think hypothetically for a second - we are good friends. if you gave me your business card would you be offended if I then put your contact details into my address book (paper or electronic)? If you e-mailed me would you be upset if I then added you on Facebook, LinkedIn etc because I let the social network scan my GMail address book? If there was someone you knew just joined Facebook would you be offended if I recommend they add you as a friend?

You and Scoble make good points. Facebook shouldn’t be denying me the opportunity to share my data, but at the same time I’m glad they are trying to protect my privacy concerns. It’s all to easy to spread your contact details around the net and I do worry about the security of transactions that services like Friend Connect are enabling, so I’m thankful that Facebook is looking out for me (even if it is mainly to protect their business from competition). If Facebook’s privacy settings could be respected through Friend Connect - brilliant!

But I think you are trying to be over-protective. You are dishing out your information for friends and colleagues to use and they should be able to use that how they please. Like when you buy a CD, you should be able to rip it onto your PC, MP3 player or media centre. It sounds to me like you’re worried about Scoble (or whoever) giving your data away to all and sundry, but that’s not the case. Friend Connect just allows friends and colleagues to duplicate your data for our own personal use. Just like, if someone gives me their birth date I’ll put it in my phone and on Google Calendar so I never forget! What’s wrong with that?

One way or the other, the users (ie., mostly the Gen Y’ers of today) wouldn’t even care, and are not about to leave Facebook and/or MySpace because of data ownership issues or for whatever that’s too right or too wrong. Makes no difference to them. By them, meant of is 90%+ of the average users (no exact definition). That’s why Google cares. The Web has not completely won yet… They’ve to try harder…

This is so long overdue and the natural course of evolution happening. They are adapting to the Friendfeeds of the world because well they have no choice now. That is the direction things are going and if they don’t then someone else will make it happen. As far as rights and data I’m sure users could set filters and have privacy options about how they want their data to be used by their friends. Some will complain they shouldn’t have to decipher a bunch of filter settings so they should also give users the option to even participate in data portability. For those people, nothing will change.

This is going to sound like a step backwards. Until we have true data portability, maintaining friends lists on multiple networks really segments and limits the amount of freedom you have when accessing the audience on each site. Then you are creating one more barrier to entry into your activity for every social network you start a friends list on. Subscription based opt in email marketing still is kinda the most effective way to own data and communicate across walled gardens. Having a place on the page for subscriptions to RSS or an opt in form for data collection is the surest way to create a permission based system that you own. Even if for the only reason to back up your friends lists in case something happens to your account and you lose it.

Speaking of security flawed apps… Myspace has Facebook beat when it come to apps invading peoples friends list. Funny enough the app that is wreaking havoc there right now is called ‘Own Your Friends’!. Once installed I think people pretty much pay money to own their friends whatever that means and they even can make money somehow. I haven’t tried it for the obvious reasons. But the app then asks them the golden question, may we use this app to access your friends data? Would you like to tell your friends about it? So then the app goes and spams up all their friends comment and posts a bulletin. Now all the friends have these repetitive comments coming in like crazy just like old times on Myspace and the friend now hits the spam button Myspace enabled for comments. So now this innocent person who just wanted to try an app out is going to get flagged in the Myspace system as a spammer and have their account disabled and be lucky if they can restore it.

If an app can use someone’s data like that then everyone with less invasive intentions, who want to use the social site to actually be social and network should be able to own their data. We are at a point where social networks are competing for features, apps, and services anyway why not just let them all be portable and let the users mash up the best of the best features and services while taking their data with them and being reminded how much they still love the platform because of the awesome app or feature they just installed?

This is kinda like the evolution from 8 track to record, to cassette, to CD to digital. The bottom line is that data is worth a ton of money and these social networks spent a lot of money collecting that data. As long as they can leverage that in the best way, that is how they will do it. It will take time for true portability to happen but evolution says it will.

Your right - It’s all about who controls the social graph

http://tinyurl.com/3oqsda

Yeah I should be able to give google connect permission… but what is the difference if I use FacebookConnect? It does the same thing I guess. They can try and hide behind terms and conditions. At the end of the day it is simple ‘double standards’. One more reason why Facebook sucks… apps, fun walls that are no fun and freaking zombies! bah! There is little or no fun left in Facebook.

Scoble.

Let’s try this in terms of rights. When I give you a piece of data like an email address, there is an assumption of how you will use it i.e. email me. If for example I am on Facebook but hate Google for some reason, you should respect the fact that I do not want my data on any Google servers.

While there may be an implict agreement when sharing data. an explict agreement/request should always override.

Capisce?

Mike is right. Facebook, Google and MySpace aren’t there to protect your privacy. They are fighting a battle over who gets to own you and your data. I think that this network thinking is fundamentally flawed. People should be owning their own data. Makes the whole thing clean and much easier to implement. In this Use Centric Web you decide what to do with your data. The Googles, Facebooks and MySpaces are then forced to become what they should be, service providers (instead of data hoggers). I always use the analogy of the traveler who drops by a gas station. He gets serviced there (food, drinks, gasoline) and then travels further on his journey. The service that provides most user value will get the traffic, the service that finds the network (or social graph) more important than the user will lose. In a User Centric Web, I get to control my data.

>When I give you a piece of data like an email address, there is an assumption of how you will use it i.e. email me. If for example I am on Facebook but hate Google for some reason, you should respect the fact that I do not want my data on any Google servers.

Wrong.

When you give me a business card (which is really what you’re doing on Facebook) with your email address you DO NOT GET TO DECIDE what programs I get to email you from.

You ALSO DO NOT GET TO DECIDE WHAT PHONE BRAND I CAN CALL YOU FROM.

Absolutely 100% wrong if you believe you have that ability.

so impressive a post

This is why even on social networks I collect my own data. Then you can use the social network for what it is for. So what that I have 50K friends on a site? My goal is to get all 50K to subscribe to my RSS feed and opt in to my database.

Until real data portability exists I will continue to collect opt in subscriptions and use email to notify people the important stuff.

I with Robert on this one, if you give your email, photos etc. to someone you can hope/ask they don’t give it to others or (re-)publish it but they might not do what you want - but you have no control about what happens next.

E.g. if I get someone’s email address on facebook I might use it in a big cc’ed email, so everyone on the email will see it anyway. If they the friend was that particular about it they shouldn’t have given it out, facebook does after all have messaging built in anyway.

or another example I could leave my facebook logged on in a internet cafe and all the data people have shared with me is now available to the next user.

Restricting the APIs does’t fix those issues.

The players might not realize it yet, but they’re not fighting over gold, they’re fighting over faeces wrapped in foil. So who really cares who wins?

It’s MY information. However, when I accept you as a “Friend” on a social network, I agree to share any and all information in my “Profile” with whomever I have become a “Friend”.

I want you to have my latest phone number or email address. Hell, I want you to know what songs I like.

I am on a social network sharing this information. The point is to communicate. Phone numbers, email addresses, IMs, etc. All MY information, that I want YOU to have, is available. If I didn’t want you to have that information, I wouldn’t put it in my profile.

My point:

By requesting or accepting a friends request, you give that individual the right to access your information. By allowing them to access this information, you also are allowing them to copy, memorize, or use your contact information. It makes no difference if one of these processes is being handled by a program (Friend Connect) or a pencil in hand.

If you don’t want to share your information, don’t. Pretty simple.

To be honest, you’re both kind of right, and, yet, totally missing the point.

Everyone’s concerned about privacy and portability. People think google is evil, and don’t want them to get MORE information on them then they all ready get via indexing every search you make, getting you to install their toolbars, use their applications, and so on.

Now people want to parade Facebook as some sort of champion for “individual’s rights” because they don’t want to play nice? Hell no - Facebook, like Google, is in this for the money, the big bucks, the ability to take the information they have and sell it to the highest bidder (or charge monthly fees for every company under the sun to check out “your” data so they can tailor ads to *you*).

Personally, I think we’re at a crossroads - either we, as a society, open up and eliminate the idea that we have online privacy - that the amalgam of logins/chat programs/APIs/social media sites can be under one authoritative login - or we say “we want our privacy” and a company comes along to allow you to store all this wonderful marketing database material on a thumbdrive that you carry with you, that’ll say you are who you say you are. (I’m copyrighting this

Now, in regards to “friending” me, and me getting your address - look at it in another way. I have your cell phone number. I meet your crazy ex. She wants your number. Would you want me to give it to her, or ask your permission first? That’s a matter of trust - you friended me because you expect when the crazies in the world start asking about you, I’ll say “oh gee, what’s your number? I’ll have him call you” but these sites are eliminating that all together.

They’re saying “we’re hip, we’re cool - tell us everything you know about everybody, and we’ll clue them in on this stuff - it’s real good shit.” C’mon - we’re just dolling up the issue - we’re giving away our little black books to every site we sign up to (add your address book to “see” if your friends are here all ready, if not we PWOMISE we won’t tell them that you sold them out!)

Maybe I’m being paranoid, maybe I’m a realist. Either way - the issue is moot. Our data - yours and mine - is up for sale. Facebook, Myspace, Google, MSN, AOL - they’re just trying to make money off of it while they can.

Am I right or wrong? Please, prove it either way. I’d love it to be that this is just crazy-talk and they’re not making millions off of tracking their users with targeted ads/commericals online, and that they’re really concerned with “keeping our users’ data safe” and not at all about “how best can we use this database of likes, dislikes, and history to make more money off them?”

And I’m not saying I’m perfect - I’ve made the mistake of “giving out” an email address - but the idea that “your data” is really *your data* seems to be a dying concept, and now is “how best can everyone take my data to make it easier for everyone else.”

Could not agree more.

It’s transparent that Facebook and MySpace are not a service with a technological competitive advantage like for example Google.
Their advantage is only temporary and will last until people are able to migrate their data and move their social applications to the cloud.
How could facebook/myspace not resist data migration?, data migration is their demise.

Attaching a person’s profile to a company that does not provide any meaningful service beyond what everyone else offers is an anomaly that would, under normal circumstances, naturally disappear over time.

>I meet your crazy ex. She wants your number. Would you want me to give it to her, or ask your permission first?

If she’s really my crazy ex she knows how to use Google and can look up my cell phone there.

>you friended me because you expect when the crazies in the world start asking about you, I’ll say “oh gee, what’s your number? I’ll have him call you” but these sites are eliminating that all together.

There’s a really funny thing about the phone system: it’s a very awesome identity system. If you don’t block caller ID you’ll get through to my phone. If you are a crazy person I’ll probably call you back and be crazy back. If you’re someone really criminal I’ll call the authorities.

>Our data - yours and mine - is up for sale. Facebook, Myspace, Google, MSN, AOL - they’re just trying to make money off of it while they can.

Yeah, which is why I make most of my data public. I’d make my whole Facebook Profile public if I could.

To your point: the horse is out of the barn and I write about one company that will make this whole discussion moot over on my blog.

A bit more food for thought on the concept of “owning your data”.

If you own your “data” like an e-mail - does that mean you have legal title over it? So if someone is going to use it in Plaxo, are you going to challenge him in the courts to respect your legal title?

Talking about data ownership is impractical; Information is not like a piece of land. To quote Steve Greenberg, one of the brains in the DataPortability policy group:
- Ownership is relevant when there is scarcity. (That’s not an issue in the virtual world.)
- Ownership is the ability to deny someone else’s use of the asset.
- So, if data is shared and publicly available, it is a practical impossibility for me to deny use
- and if data is available in a form where I can’t control others’ use of it, I can not really claim to own it

Greenberg above describes the flawed logic of ownership in the virtual sense; data as a definition implies you can’t own it; and lets not forget how damn hard the whole area of determining ownership is. Talking about rights, not ownership, is the way to go - and lots of smart people agree [1]

Drop the concept of ownership; the issue is who has rights to the benefits over that data.

This doesn’t kill the discussion here, but instead frames it in a much better way.

[1] http://datasharingsummit.com/d.....Word_-_own