The privacy changes of Facebook and with how it handles my data is starting to annoy me. Other people have noticed the problems with it as well, and I have seen quite a few new e-mails and articles appear to address the privacy issues. Those warnings have always existed since this is the internet, but now that data is being intentionally rearranged for marketing purposes.
I have played with a couple methods to automatically disassociate myself from tags and messages without closing my account. If I succeed, I’ll make it available since some of you worry about your privacy as well.
Tonight, I came across a project called Diaspora that is making waves. In less than a month, the developers have raised almost $150,000 (by the time that you read this, it will likely be above that). Their original goal was $10,000 to pay for the work.
Diaspora is almost like social networking with e-mail. You have your own server where your data is stored (there are plans for a hosted server with Wordpress). Other people will have their own servers that will be able to talk to your server. The difference is that since you own and control your own data, you get to control how they access it.
For the technically-inclined, the data will be encrypted with GPG to ensure your security. There will be scrapers involved to pull your data from existing sites, such as Facebook or Twitter. You will also be able to post data back to those places, if you choose to.
The initial release is scheduled for September of this year. I am definitely curious, and there is a good chance that I will configure my own server. I made this blog because I did not trust other blogging services.
Comments
Submitted by Odin on
Interesting.
Submitted by garrettw on
Interesting indeed. I will be watching this.
I had been wondering recently if/when a Facebook competitor would emerge, and what it would be like.
Submitted by Chris on
There are other attempts to replace Facebook, but this one looks the most promising so far. I am much happier owning my own data than giving it to a big corporation (or sometimes small, temperamental ones). If necessary, I’m even willing to host other peoples’. At most, I’ll install some ads to cover a little time and my hosting.
Submitted by netwiz on
Is there an advantage to have me be able to have my social interactions housed by someone I have more of a connection with vs. a generic company? Basically it only works if Chris is willing to volunteer some of the value he’s adding, the big company will be able to spread that value much further than Chris and make it feasible to recapture with ads. Today my brother is hosting my (pretty much inactive) blog. Hmm, I need to think about this further. I have disliked providing my content to fb (which is one reason I’m here); forget privacy…it’s MY content.
Of course, I’ve decided it’s better just to donate it to Chris, but there you go.
Submitted by Chris on
I have still made thousands of posts on other forums and blogs around the internet. My hesitation is not that others will read and learn from or criticize what I say. One problem is that the data is collected into a central place that is supposed to represent “me”—all of “me.” And then “me” is marketed.
Facebook has been working in major ways to integrate Facebook user data into other websites around the internet. When I first saw that, there was only one thing that prevented me from shutting down my account immediately. It was that my customers wanted Facebook integration.
Submitted by netwiz on
Working for the company I work for, there had to be a reason (or at least there would be percieved to be value) beyond just showing you some ads with your social experience. I’ve had no suprises as FaceBook tries to maximize the content that they’ve been donated.
Submitted by Chris on
Marketers want to target their ads. I’ve been a part of the corporate world and have even used some professional tools to track user bases. It makes sense.
Now, as a consumer, I still walk a fine line between allowing them their business and preserving my rights to keep to myself.
Submitted by netwiz on
My aunt who used to work for the company I work for said people would think that my company is responsible for junk mail. Actually our focus was how to save companies money so they would send less “blast” mail and more targeted mail. It’s not doing anyone any good to show an ad for something you’ll never buy. It’s a waste. What marketers want to do is get you the information you need to potentially pick them at the moment you want to make the purchase.
There are two things that upset the consumer. Having a marketer manipulate us based on what they’ve figure out about us (“ah, they have a weakness for chocolate, let’s offer them free chocolate with will preparation!). The other thing they are uncomfortable about is behaviors they have done that they rather didn’t come up to them when they don’t want them to. The latter I have a hard time working around…if you shouldn’t do those things, then don’t do them. Ever thought of an advertisement as being a conscience?
The former is an interesting thing…but I think it loses most of its potential if you are conscious of it and ask yourself the question when presented with something: is a marketer taking advantage of a weakness. Never hurts to take time to make a decision—now it’s up to the marketer to figure out how to detect that they got the consideration started at a certain point.
Anyway, I could probably talk on this subject for a long time. It’s my day-to-day world.
Submitted by Chris on
Interesting. I am always interested in the marketing world, even though I generally try to deconstruct the practices. All of my practice has been with in-person marketing and very little is digital.
Maybe you can be goaded into talking about this more sometime?
Submitted by netwiz on
I’m definitely on the technical side of what my company does, but I’ve obviously heard the marketing spin enough and have to understand the business need of the marketing products and am able to see what is successful.
Anyway, had an epiphany today: I’ve been trying to figure out why Google is operating what would appear to be a relatively expensive thing like Google voice…then it occurred to me that nothing stops them from auto-transcribing “live” conversations as part of their marketing knowledge (both generic as well as about me specifically). We definitely live in a world where an expectation of privacy needs to be discarded especially when making use of “free” services.
Submitted by Chris on
There are still idealists at Google. Zuckerberg (of Facebook) announced in the last week that he has been sorely misunderstood on the privacy front and that he is only wanting to improve the world.
You may be partially right though. I remember hearing a while back that Google was offering 411 services as a test of their voice recognition technologies which would ultimately be used for something else… that I forget right now.