Both Tim Berners-Lee and Kevin Kelly mention the idea of the 'new' internet being all about the sharing of data. During their TED Talks, they encourage this notion of allowing all of your personal information to be available at all times. While we are seeing more and more people ('innovators') accept this, there is still a reluctance for people to completely divulge all of their personal information to the web.
It's pretty fair to assume that there is a widespread opinion that publishing all of your personal info to this 'cloud' we call the web is not a secure way to store your data. People have a view that uploading your data isn't safe, and have a real issue with the privacy of their information.
The irony is, that most of us already have a whole lot of data in 'the cloud' without even knowing it.
Do you use a Gmail?
Do you have a Facebook/Twitter/MySpace account?
Have you used eBay or ASOS to buy clothes?
All of these sites use personal data such as telephone numbers, emails and postal addresses during your interactions. When posting this, I logged in with my Google account. Similarly, I didn't sign up for Twitter, I used my Gmail to log in. I also have this Google account linked to my address book and calendar. This means that all of my 234 contacts telephone numbers, emails, birthdays and postal addresses are all on the web.
Have a think of the online resources you use. Are you actually putting more data online than you're comfortable with?
I often find myself wondering, if people wanted to access my information they could gain almost everything they wanted from my internet usage...
ReplyDeleteThinking how many times i have shared personal details including addresses, bank account details, mobile phone numbers, birthdays, occupations, aspirations and even the places I am eating or socialising... It really is scary.
I rarely give a second thought when sharing information over the internet, and assume websites such as Faceook/Twitter/eBay and Hotmail are all relatively safe.
Do you think these websites are doing enough to protect our information. Should they be making it a priority to provide users with a greater deal of security to the current and ever growing threat of "hacking"?
Do you think a company such as 'News Corporation' will see backlash in Australia with its broadsheet website The Age online because of the current happenings with News of The World etc?
@luke: Some good food for thought there... Most of the services you are referring to "promise" to keep your data private (well, at least most of it!). I think that Tim and Kevin are both calling for public data to be set free, not our private data.
ReplyDelete@rockout: Murdoch doesn't own The Age - that's a Fairfax publication. The Herald Sun is part of New Corporation. :)
let me correct then! do you think News corporation will see backlash in Australia with the Herald Sun and it's product spread?
ReplyDelete@wags : Exactly! They promise a secure source of data storage, but many would argue that it is far too easy to 'hack' this data. I guess they are after a full open source of data, but how far does that go? Even I'm a little skeptical of how much info weI SHOULD be putting only
ReplyDelete@pat : I'd say we'll see minimum back-lash due to the perceived remoteness of the issue. At this stage (as far as I know) there hasn't been any major claims made within Australia, so the average person doesn't link reading the Herald Sun to an association with the News Corp. scandal. Mind you, anyone who reads the Herald Sun probably wouldn't see a wall that they've just walked into... :)
Looks like it's rumoured that Apple will be going ahead with something that Berners-Lee was suggesting in his TED address.
ReplyDeletehttp://mashable.com/2011/08/11/apple-icloud-iphone-rumor/
This goes with the idea that goods could be cheaper with the cloud because they would need less hardware...interesting
Just saw this comment in The Age today in regards to the new Woolworths iPhone app. The journalist is talking about how there is reluctance with loyalty programs because people don't want others knowing what their shopping list is. But he makes a good point:
ReplyDelete"...most of us are prepared to trade our privacy if we feel we’re getting a valuable service in return."
Clearly, there's a balance between how much info consumers are willing to share, and the perceived benefits of sharing that information.