I have been thinking about a theory of privacy online lately, and came across a fairly thought provoking article which will appear in the latest Newsweek. It points out that companies like Microsoft, Google, and AOL are gathering all sorts of personal information, and that there’s a good chance that we won’t complain because of all the benefits of personalization and customization. However, it notes:
The result would be an erosion of privacy very different from the ones privacy advocates have long warned about—coming not at the hand of a big-brother government, nor of stalkers, hackers, telemarketers, spammers or abusive employers, but rather of companies bribing us with services.
They sort of get the point: that privacy in Web 2.0 is all about control. I don’t mind letting the world know what music tracks I listen to every day through Last.fm (recommendations through groups and profiles are a good thing), but when iTunes included a recommendation service based on listening I was offended. I don’t mind posting information about myself on facebook, or on this blog, but when others gather that information to advertise or to even make assumptions about who I am, again I get offended. Sharing is a good thing, but I (and would argue others) want to have intimate control over exactly what I share or others do with my data.
Perhaps I’m thinking of personal information as something that can be owned by an individual. As someone in the article says, “Wouldn’t it be nice if the network knew you liked to visit warm places, and put together a $3,000 package to Cancún?”
No, I may like warm places, but when I’m ready for a trip and have the money, I’ll come looking for you. It might be different if one was willing to give some sort of additional compensation for the information…why should we agree to be advertised to for mere “convenience.”
Interesting new terms in the article:
- sentient network: “The network magically figures out what you’re looking for and provides it at the right time, anywhere,”
- Personal data distortion (de-identification): tools which let one slightly morph personal data so that things are still useful, but not personally identifiable.
I got a surprise when trying to upload my first video to YouTube last night (which was reported today): YouTube has set a maximum video length of 10 minutes. Their statement says that they found most videos over this amount of time were obviously infringing copyright, and offered a “premium content program” for content owners to upload videos longer than the limit.
When you think about it, this was a smart length of time to choose for a lot of reasons:
- Most TV shows run about 23 minutes without commercials, had they made the maximum 15 minutes a half hour sitcom would have been easy to split.
- Splitting longer material (especially movies) will be nearly unworkable.
- It might also be easier for someone to make a fair-use argument for uploading such a short segment of copyrighted material. Ars pointed out that YouTube has many funny clips from movies like Napoleon Dynamite (and says “a good portion of which are not examples of fair use”)…yet perhaps a short clip with a comment/criticism in the text may pass. We’ll see if YouTube would go along with a challenge.
There is no word yet on whether material longer than 10 minutes is going to be deleted. If so, it will be sad to see a lot of difficult to find material (international or out of print) go away.
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has completed their draft on changes to telecommunication law, and perhaps no surprise, there is nothing in the text which could be understood to prevent providers from tiering service. (C Net, as always, has an article which does an excellent job of explaining neutrality and the various arguments).
Numerous scholars and net companies have spoken out in favor of neutrality principles, and now even one of the Net’s founders is sharing his views (see: Battle for the Web). Tim Berners-Lee went on record as saying, “The whole point of the Web is when you arrive it’s more or less the same for everybody. That integrity is really essential. … I’m very concerned.” Larry Lessig is also pointing out that the move away from neutrality is a backwards move towards asking government to help dictate the structure of the net. However, ArsTechnica is stating that the issue of network neutrality is “not dead yet.”
What it all comes down to is the idea that government can exist to enhance civic life and commerce through subsidizing the creation of a commons. The creation of the postal system, roadways, regulation of the Bell telephone monopoly, and the gift of the DOD’s DARPA-NET are all examples of this. In each case, a content neutral network was created with help from the government to create something that everyone (business and individuals) has enormously benefited from.
Consumers are going to have to pay for infrastructure upgrades no matter which way things go. Why should we sacrifice what so many believe to be a good thing when the outcome is the same?
It turns out that it’s all about competition after all. C Net’s latest story about the testimony of the “broadband giants” shows that the telecos are interested in getting into the video business, and they do not want to have to open up their large future video pipes to the whole net or potentially slow down their own signal. Essentially, they’re arguing that the would like to create their own virtual private network, and allow others to use it at a price.
They should be free to build their own network for private use (so that it would be much like getting two separate signals for cable and Internet), but there’s no reason why this desire has to get mixed up with the Internet. When seen this way, there really would be no “free rider” problem because only their own content would be allowed through this separate network. When customers start complaining that the regular Internet speeds are too slow–then maybe things will open up.
FCC chair Kevin Martin chimed in with his take on the Internet network neutrality issue:
“We need to make sure we have a regulatory environment (in which network operators) can invest in the network and can recoup their costs,”
The question for Mr. Martin is: why must we throw out the baby with the bathwater? The neutral network has done wonders for spawning innovative use and competition between all sorts of web companies. Taking away network neutrality will essentially lock in the benefit to entities which can afford the increased access speeds.
Martin is already advocating for some kind of “regulatory environment,” so why must it be non-neutral? If driving network investment is the concern, certainly some kind of system to subsidize expansion could serve the same purpose while still maintaining neutrality. While this would be outside the FCC’s scope, Congress has the incredible chance for maintaining and even enhancing our great commons which is the Internet.
Perhaps Martin can find this point somewhere in his somewhat recent (2/10/06) comment on net video competition:
Given all of the benefits that additional competition offers for consumers,
we will continue to closely monitor the progress of all new entrants and
seek to eliminate any unreasonable barriers to entry and to address other
issues that we find impede such progress. [emphasis mine]
