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Should We Assume There Is No Privacy Online? Have Widgets Killed Privacy?
Yesterday I was a panelist at the Politics Online conference in Washington, D.C. discussing online privacy. Mark Hopkins from Mashable moderated the panel and Jim Harper from WashingtonWatch and Sascha Meinrath from the New America Foundation were on the panel with me.
We began by discussing ScobleGate where videoblogger Robert Scoble broke the terms of use agreement with Facebook to "lift" user data and move it into a Plaxo account. Sascha discussed the difference between private and public conversations. My question is whether anything is private anymore. It's simple really; anything on a machine somewhere can become public at any time.
We discussed privacy policies and wondered how many people actually read them when entering a Web site -- about half of the room raised their hands that they have read a privacy policy at least once. But most agreed they just check the box and move on.
Mark asked me about the change in privacy from 1998 to 2008 and my response is that widgets and third-party apps have changed the game. In 1998, few Web sites were connecting to as many things as they are today. Most blogs are running some sort of widget or third-party service. Can a privacy policy disclaim these uses? How does a user even know where to go to figure out what exactly is loading on a site and track those individual privacy policies... and should they have to? Should widgets send along a privacy policy on embed?
Load up Fred Wilson's blog. He has about 50 widgets on the page. How can a person easily figure out what the privacy policy looks like for the entire site (blog + widgets)? Who knows what any of those widgets are tracking about us, right? Should we even care?
There was a discussion about anonymous versus using your name as an identifier. Look at Juicy Campus -- this site allows individuals to anonymously spread gossip which can be lewd about another person without any fear of retribution.
I worked on a project about two years ago with a major insurance company where the HR director explained that for any applicant his first stop was Yahoo and Google to see if there was any information on the applicant. I'd assume today that would include LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
So I ask, do we still have any privacy online? Should we start from the realization that we don't have privacy and begin to put new standards in place to protect our privacy instead of assuming we have privacy with policies that date from ten years ago?
What you are saying is true. To add to that, just being online means we are giving up our real rights to privacy in actuality, right? Unless we are browsing through cloaking, someone always knows where we are at all times, so, ya...privacy is moot online technically speaking. In a more broad realm of speaking, privacy is going downward no matter what. There are beginning to be more and more ways to take advantage of this, unfortunately. I think we may likely see future instances of this take place legally and socially. You fill in the blanks here, it doesn't take much.
I'd say that privacy has always been a weakly defined concept. It doesn't take the internet to provide a forum for baseless allegations as any rumourmonger will confirm. Similarly, you'd think twice about pulling out Mein Kampf for a read at Starbucks - because "privacy" is weakly defined in that context.
So - why not exercise the same discretion and carry the same expectations for the internet. Privacy is such a hand-wringing issue, but were already making the same judgments in a thousand different contexts every day - just exercise common sense and carry on.
We'd have to say we agree with the person above us. What draws the line as far as what is considered private and not private? It depends on each particular person as what is classified as such varies. Privacy as a whole we suppose is getting harder to keep with more ways to communicate and will continue to be that way as time goes on and newer innovations come into the market.
We'd have to say we agree with the person above us. What draws the line as far as what is considered private and not private? It depends on each particular person as what is classified as such varies. Privacy as a whole we suppose is getting harder to keep with more ways to communicate and will continue to be that way as time goes on and newer innovations come into the market.
Borrowing from one of my favorite Valleywag topics, the concept of privacy on the internet is an illusion. It should be assumed that anything you post on the internet can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion. When discussing a web startup, established company, or a colleague, it's imperative to ask yourself "If this appeared on the front page of a business journal, would I be able to look at myself in the mirror?" It's called the newspaper headline test and its value has been diluted by the blogosphere, and its act-before-you-think mentality. While harshness is accepted and encouraged in the blogosphere, utilizing these tactics when interacting with corporate america can be detrimental and may cause irreparable damage.