Rather than building alternatives (which I am not confident would work given how difficult it tends to be to move people off brands they've grown accustomed to), it might be better to establish norms for "privacy," data protection, data correlation, etc. ft.com/content/d56744…
I say "norms" (or guidelines maybe?) here because I assume that armies of corporate lawyers will always outsmart legislators...and it doesn't always take an army of lawyers. Ref. Senator Hatch's jaw-droppingly embarrasing question to Mr. Zuckerberg re: FB's revenue.
The EU's "Right to be Forgotten" concept is interesting, but also illustrative: do we want to "forget" what public figures have said? The "right to be forgotten" cannot not be a tool to whitewash the record: social media might be an important source for future historians.
I think any future starts with a discussion of the harm, real and potential, of past and current practices akin to the then-groundbreaking discussions around pollution, vehicle safety, etc.
Creating enforceable norms / guidelines absent a clear sense of the problem(s) to be mitigated against is pointless...and, at the end of the day, this is likely to be more a matter of risk management than aversion.
The problem space(s) seems to be around:
1. Data collection, retention, and storage (to include data protection);
2. Data sharing and correlation;
3. Applications of collected and/or correlated data; and
4. Public education on ToS.
This list is incomplete but it will do for now.
1. Data collection, retention, and storage (to include data protection);
2. Data sharing and correlation;
3. Applications of collected and/or correlated data; and
4. Public education on ToS.
This list is incomplete but it will do for now.
Assuming I'm not wholly off the mark, who needs to be in the room for v1.0 of sketching out norms / guidelines? I assume (from this position of ignorance) it's a combination of bureaucrats, academics, advocacy groups, and industry (in a secondary capacity).
My concerns are four-fold:
1. Technology moves too fast for meaningful guidelines;
2. The speed is multiplied given the pieces of mobile ecosystem;
3. The profit at play encourages negative innovation; and
3. Accepting a lowest common denominator norm will not be satisfying.
1. Technology moves too fast for meaningful guidelines;
2. The speed is multiplied given the pieces of mobile ecosystem;
3. The profit at play encourages negative innovation; and
3. Accepting a lowest common denominator norm will not be satisfying.
I really need to get in the habit of stringing this all together on Medium or something but then I feel as though I would then need to do research, provide sources, etc. Ugh. <- things you do not often hear a recovering analyst say...
