Author: john

Why privacy and copyright make small providers nervous

Another response to my assertion that FERPA has some scared tells me deserves a bit of clarification.

The trouble (and in some respects, benefit) of laws like copyright and privacy, which only become certain after long and expensive litigation, is that they are not completely explicit. Borderline cases leave small providers wondering whether they might be liable if they were sued–and this uncertainty leads some to steer clear of anything that pushes the boundaries.

My own theory is that FERPA was written in a protectionist paradigm, rather than a control paradigm. This means that certain categories of data are completely locked down, rather than giving the student or instructor the options to contol the data how they see fit. With fine-grained facebook-like privacy controls, it should be technically possible to let students control what is publicly released (indeed many do it anyway by doing things like posting a course video project to YouTube). The nervousness creates a situation where law (rightly or even by misinterpretation) limits what people might do with technology.

YouTube user data

What does one need to prove that a business is built on infringement?  A judge who ordered Google to hand over detailed viewing data to Viacom states:

They need the data to compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing videos with that of non-infringing videos. A markedly higher proportion of infringing-video watching may bear on plaintiffs’ vicarious liability claim, and defendants’ substantial non-infringing use defense.

Aside from the occasional difficulties of how one might define a video as “infringing,” it seems odd that Viacom needs to know who has watched what video and when. YouTube has (as far as I can remember) always been open about what their “Most Viewed” videos are–including the laughing babies, “official” content, and Naruto fansubs. The mix of different types of content is pretty striking.

Considering that Viacom also asked to see Google’s search algorithm, it seems like they’re just trying to hit Google where it hurts in any way possible. It’s troubling that this request may make a large number of their users feel violated. If a site like this were considered more of a library than a business, perhaps there would be a more historically grounded argument for keeping the data private. I’ve heard Google doesn’t make much money off of YouTube, so there’s some chance the analogy could work.

This one almost slipped past the long weekend radar 🙂

Skimming Google Reader – My solution

It’s kind of sad, but sometimes open source projects slow way down. It happend to Thunderbird (I switched to Leopard Mail, which came out around the same time that TB’s primary architects left the project), and now it appears to have happened to my favorite newsreader: Gregarius.

Offline reading has always made Google Reader awfully attractive, but the one Gregarius feature I couldn’t live without was a slider to shorten posts to a consistent length. This made it easy to skim the beginning of an article without too much scrolling.

Thus, we have my first UserStyle: Googe Reader Shrink Expanded View

If you haven’t been turned on to user styles in Firefox yet, download the Stylish add-on and check out this Lifehacker post filled with useful styles.

Trusting Kill Switches and Manners

Wired warns us about the future, kill switches, and Digital Manners Policies arguing, “Once we go down this path — giving one device authority over other devices — the security problems start piling up.”

I tend to agree. When the person behind the wheel loses complete control they are put in a position where someone else might abuse these new controls. As a tinker-er I’d also feel any managed devices I owned had been crippled.

However, the security problem I also worry about is the potential for a false sense of security. It may sound convenient to have phones muted in theatres, but there are contexts where this could be dangerous (a doctor might not realize the restriction and miss an important call). Certainly someone will think that, since OnStar can turn off their car if it were stolen, they can leave the doors unlocked and the keys on the dash.

Trusting technology is fine–but there might come a point where this trust could make us less aware of our surroundings.