Alex
10-12-2009, 09:27 PM
Companies don’t think of their privacy policy as an advantage but they should. Early on in the cloud context there is room to use this aspect for the benefit of the entire market and to gain goodwill and gain market share and mindshare. Optimization by measuring and managing is giving way to building in slack. Privacy can make things easier and more efficient.
Private industry needs to exceed the ideals set for government.
We as a society agree that the government should be prohibited, except where absolutely necessary, from keeping private information. We further agree that the scope of the information and the duration of holding needs to be as limited as possible. We don’t want the government collecting evidence or construing evidence unless absolutely necessary. We also don’t want it sharing the information. In short we don’t want the state subjecting us to situations were we are suspect. This is similar to what’s behind the prohibition on tape recording people without their knowing about it. It’s treated as a crime. It’s not enough to say that: you knew we recorded everything on this site or should have assumed so. That’s exactly the wrong attitude. Databases are tyrannical by nature, what they collect is not evidence it’s only a map which is always subject to problems of resolution and orientation.
The Internet as first and sometimes final context.
More and more all information will pertain to the internet, the internet will be its source of origin and its point of operation, it won’t be in correspondence with outside elements so record keeping excuses based on correspondence premise won’t work. Its imperative for us to build in a culture that does not even begin to construe data as evidence unless it was collected for that purpose and even then remains skeptical. It’s vital for us to build in necessary ambiguity to prevent tyranny and a culture that becomes addicted to taking things out of context with random consequence.
Keeping statistical data does not mean keeping private data.
There are all sorts of excuses for wanting to collect actual private data and wanting to keep around private data sets. These might include verification or running ad hoc queries. The statistical data needs to be abstracted instantaneously without it ever becoming a store of private data or something that can be tracked back to a person.
Identify to the minimum extent necessary.
Privacy is not a function of identification and it must come before identification- only identify to the minimum extent necessary. Consideration of privacy should have priority over identification and attempts at identification need to be softened. Privacy is not a function of identification, it is actually not necessary to strictly identify people to preserve privacy. All the furor over social security numbers is insane when the government readily sells that information to merchants without asking for much information in return. If its not law enforcement its important, where possible, not to positively identify people. Even in a commerce setting it may not be that important to identify people. The advantages and efficiencies of not having positive identification (including allowing full anonymity) need to be used. Finding the minimum level of identification necessary, neither more nor less, is a huge and necessary help to privacy and ease of use. It needs to be clearly possible for people to deny a link to things so that society is not incessantly caught up on the idiotic aspects of accountability to the detriment of the essential aspects of accountability.
Assume all end users are developing IP, grant them that level of privacy as a default.
Its never really been that important to assign an idea to a personage, its really only been important to get the right personage or group working with the idea so that the idea can be utilized. It’s a pump priming function or general enrichment issue much more than specific enrichment issue. In the specific instance it’s not that important that people involved with innovation get compensation but only in the aggregate. We don’t own ideas, not even for a limited time. Even if one could establish that the idea came to them first (a fiction at best,) it’s a vague association with their personage at best. Its society that will end up putting ideas to their best use. When IP is being developed think of the privacy that is required, all end users should be assumed to be developing IP.
Building on a solid foundation.
Targeted ads, and credit reporting share some of the same problems, both amount to gossip or selling things not owned by the seller and usually to the detriment and against the will of the rightful owner. The idea that targeted ads require less attention theft again presumes that the seller could legitimately sell what wasn’t theirs in the first place. Credit reporting is far from a necessary evil and other societies don’t engage in it.
Private industry needs to exceed the ideals set for government.
We as a society agree that the government should be prohibited, except where absolutely necessary, from keeping private information. We further agree that the scope of the information and the duration of holding needs to be as limited as possible. We don’t want the government collecting evidence or construing evidence unless absolutely necessary. We also don’t want it sharing the information. In short we don’t want the state subjecting us to situations were we are suspect. This is similar to what’s behind the prohibition on tape recording people without their knowing about it. It’s treated as a crime. It’s not enough to say that: you knew we recorded everything on this site or should have assumed so. That’s exactly the wrong attitude. Databases are tyrannical by nature, what they collect is not evidence it’s only a map which is always subject to problems of resolution and orientation.
The Internet as first and sometimes final context.
More and more all information will pertain to the internet, the internet will be its source of origin and its point of operation, it won’t be in correspondence with outside elements so record keeping excuses based on correspondence premise won’t work. Its imperative for us to build in a culture that does not even begin to construe data as evidence unless it was collected for that purpose and even then remains skeptical. It’s vital for us to build in necessary ambiguity to prevent tyranny and a culture that becomes addicted to taking things out of context with random consequence.
Keeping statistical data does not mean keeping private data.
There are all sorts of excuses for wanting to collect actual private data and wanting to keep around private data sets. These might include verification or running ad hoc queries. The statistical data needs to be abstracted instantaneously without it ever becoming a store of private data or something that can be tracked back to a person.
Identify to the minimum extent necessary.
Privacy is not a function of identification and it must come before identification- only identify to the minimum extent necessary. Consideration of privacy should have priority over identification and attempts at identification need to be softened. Privacy is not a function of identification, it is actually not necessary to strictly identify people to preserve privacy. All the furor over social security numbers is insane when the government readily sells that information to merchants without asking for much information in return. If its not law enforcement its important, where possible, not to positively identify people. Even in a commerce setting it may not be that important to identify people. The advantages and efficiencies of not having positive identification (including allowing full anonymity) need to be used. Finding the minimum level of identification necessary, neither more nor less, is a huge and necessary help to privacy and ease of use. It needs to be clearly possible for people to deny a link to things so that society is not incessantly caught up on the idiotic aspects of accountability to the detriment of the essential aspects of accountability.
Assume all end users are developing IP, grant them that level of privacy as a default.
Its never really been that important to assign an idea to a personage, its really only been important to get the right personage or group working with the idea so that the idea can be utilized. It’s a pump priming function or general enrichment issue much more than specific enrichment issue. In the specific instance it’s not that important that people involved with innovation get compensation but only in the aggregate. We don’t own ideas, not even for a limited time. Even if one could establish that the idea came to them first (a fiction at best,) it’s a vague association with their personage at best. Its society that will end up putting ideas to their best use. When IP is being developed think of the privacy that is required, all end users should be assumed to be developing IP.
Building on a solid foundation.
Targeted ads, and credit reporting share some of the same problems, both amount to gossip or selling things not owned by the seller and usually to the detriment and against the will of the rightful owner. The idea that targeted ads require less attention theft again presumes that the seller could legitimately sell what wasn’t theirs in the first place. Credit reporting is far from a necessary evil and other societies don’t engage in it.