Unlike the questions in the previous posts, this is a rather easy one so I'm gonna say some basic and rather boring things trying to answer it -
Privacy is what you define as private.
This should be as easy to understand as the next thing. Everybody also seems to agree on this.
Only, they forget that this statement surely dictates the next statement -
Until explicitly defined otherwise, everything is private.
This statement is also something that is within consensus. What isn't, is how each of us defines the "explicitly defined otherwise" (in accordance with our direct relation to the data, i.e can I benefit from knowing who will write comments to this post?).
Let's break this short term -
"explicitly" - That is, explicitly to one is not explicitly to other.
Moreover, explicitly to one at a given time X isn't what he would consider explicit at another given time Y.
But normally he wouldn't be able to step back from a decision one took at that given time. This, of course, can cause many problems to people which there privacy meter changes over time as they're own life change. And, as we all know from the times of the great Heraclitus to the times of Philip K. Dick, change is the vivid force that runs through the veins of any system, from the ecosystem to one's own personal relationships. Confronting change with digital tracks (made into concrete by those who can benefit from those very same tracks) of one's past self, is a major problem. If it was a Hollywood star, none of us would have any problem with that kind of track, we would consider it a legacy. But not all of your social networking data is something you would consider "your legacy" 20 years from now, would you ?
Those concrete tracks could have major affects on the development of young people, and let me suggest, without digging in further, that this will stick them deep into they're existing connections networks, making them far less connected to old-school social networks - Because, hey, we have a "legacy = really old message posts here from 2 years ago", we have a group site = home/club, we have "family/school/unit photo albums = uploaded images", "everybody seems to be generally happy = none wants to be documented as sad in fear of being portrayed as far worse", so why bother with making all of this stuff in "the real world"? What is this "real world" anyways? (italic is for off subject from now on!)
This raises some serious questions that need some serious pondering, but back to the subject-
"defined" - Should be simple enough right? But where do I define something? Is there a main entity that we can define privacy to and it will node at us with statue-of-liberty-grace and store it forever and ever?
"otherwise" - It means that it should be noted somewhere that
Surely, all of this could be answered with simple legalization. Right? well, let's give it the benefit of the doubt and agree. BUT, the main problem is that we, the people, sign a contract without even noticing. And even if we notice, we just want to get over this minor setback. I'm talking of course about privacy statements that we all sign for using "our" new shiny Web 2/3.0 services.
Those privacy statements are exactly like those old FBI warnings before movies or video arcade machines. Who read them? The people leaning over some other non-active machine and waiting for there turn next to the guy that is already playing the popular machine (anyone said Gold Axe?).
Of course the FBI itself had nothing with those actual statements, but was put there so that you'll remember that the FBI are coming (in fact their scary logo is already here) if you'll try to reproduce the digital content.
But, unlike those warnings,
None has any real interest that you'll read their privacy statements.
Or any privacy statements what so ever (Oh no Gina, if you'll read one in another, perhaps competing, website, they'll seek for our privacy statements!). None has any interest that you'll read them after you've been using the product for some time now and suddenly the statement change (and your details are now transfered to X,Y,Z to provide "better service" to, of course, yourself).
So what should we do? (the hint is within the title, and I'll try to elaborate in the coming post)
0 comments:
Post a Comment