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Episode 610: Stop killing the universe

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My information, my story, my life

The Internet has enabled the emergence of a collective consciousness that is unprecedented in human history. We are coming together as a hive, and the intelligence of the swarm is being mined and utilized like never before.

Knowledge is power, information is a cash commodity, and who decides how these resources and benefits are distributed? The latest controversy about Facebook's Beacon advertisements is one of many examples that suggests that the issue of user control over his or her own information is reaching a tipping point. We, the online masses, are developing a new sense that our own information is sacred and worth protecting, and not to be indiscriminately broadcast, or blindly exploited for someone else's commercial gain.

Beyond a "right to privacy" that might have meant "secrecy" in the past, we need to think about the right to control our information when it comes to:

What I say about myself What others say about me, and How that information is used

I see these issues coming up time and time again in a thread that runs through everything from Internet safety, to social networking, creative artists' rights, consumer/patient rights, all the way up to government wiretapping and surveillance.… Read more

MoveOn to Facebook: We caught you red-handed

This story was updated at 2:36 PT to provide comment from Facebook and at 3:59 PT to provide further comment from MoveOn.

Is there more to the controversy surrounding Facebook's "Beacon" ads? MoveOn.org thinks so.

Last week, a feud began to brew between leftist activist group MoveOn.org and social-networking site Facebook concerning its "Beacon" advertisements, which broadcast information about users' activity on third-party partner sites to their friends' Facebook newsfeeds. According to MoveOn, it's a violation of user privacy because there's no way to universally opt out of Beacon … Read more

ABC News reaching out to Facebook users? Good luck, guys

Hey, Facebook users: Put down those virtual hamburgers. It's time to talk politics.

The New York Times reported Monday that Facebook and ABC News are close to announcing an agreement to collaborate on political coverage. The two will co-sponsor debates for both parties in New Hampshire shortly before the presidential primaries, and Facebook members will be able to "follow" ABC reporters and interact with news content in a special "U.S. Politics" category.

The Times article fails to mention that ABC is actually a bit late to the game here. CNN has co-sponsored debates with Google's YouTube, … Read more

MySpace Hypertargeting vs Facebook Beacon: Which one is creepier?

I hardly ever click on banner ads, but today I was beaten into submission by the NY Times to find out more about MySpace Hypertargeting. I still can't figure out why the banner kept showing up for me...my only guess is because I read the technology section.

Hypertargeting appears to correlate data from profiles (in real-time) so that advertisers can most effectively target ads. On the surface this is not that different from Google Search advertising. But Google is far less intrusive (for now) than MySpace or Facebook which usurp data you never signed up to disclose.

From … Read more

Pornographic ads on Facebook (that didn't take long)

It was just a month ago that Facebook launched it's questionable advertising initiatives and people are already gaming the system...with porn! (There's a photo in the Valleywag post if you are curious. It's NSFW but not that bad.)

MoveOn.org is protesting the ads that reveal information about user activity and now the smut peddlers are taking over. Never a dull moment.

It kinda makes me wish I had done a goofy social network company instead of something practical like enterprise software.

Sigh.

Want to make a fortune at Google? Rub lots of backs

Some people at Google slave away at building a better search engine, or enabling social networks like Orkut, or helping people find directions to places. Not Bonnie Brown. She rubs people's backs. And she has made multiple millions doing so.

Ms. Brown didn't get rich on her salary. In fact, Google paid her a miserly $450 per week (part-time, mind you). No, it was her stock options that have crowned her queen of the massage parlor.

She's not alone, either. There are apparently lots of millionaire-masseuses-in-waiting at Google:

It is estimated that 1,000 employees, Ms Brown among them, have accrued fortunes worth at least $5 million apiece from the nine-year-old web giant's rise and rise. The money has flowed from Google's stranglehold of the hugely lucrative online advertising market (it reported revenues of $7.5 billion in the first half of the year alone) and investors? seemingly insatiable appetite for the group?s shares. Yesterday, the company, founded in a garage by two students, sported a stock market value of some $207 billion.… Read more

Facebook nabbing Google employees...Will this make Facebook's UI better?

As TechCrunch reports, Google has a new competitor in town, and it's not necessarily about products. It's about employees.

Facebook is apparently pilfering Google employees at a torrid pace. Why? Or, rather, how? Because Google is now considered staid and middle aged, while Facebook offers cool new opportunities. (The stock market begs to differ with this characterization of Google, by the way.)

...Ex-Googler's inside Facebook are saying that the problem goes further than a few high profile exits caused by vesting stock. Facebook just seems a hell of a lot "sexier" than Google (see Rosenstein's exit email). A steady stream of Google employees are making the switch to Facebook, and competition for top college grads is fierce as well.… Read more

Time to end the digital 'arms race' of parental spying?

I caught CNET Editor at Large Brian Cooley on the CBS Evening News report last night, "The Secret Lives of Teens." In the second installment of this three-parter, which featured a tug-of-war between a daughter and her mother concerned about her risky online behavior, Cooley observed that, "This is just the return of the Cold War, with different players. Instead of the U.S. and Russia, it's Mom and Dad versus Joey and Bill." Cooley talked about parental control technology but added that, "In the end, this points back to the parenting relationship, and it moves away from technology when you really have to make a difference in their lives...you cannot rely on software."

I agree with Cooley's conclusion. Online safety for teens is a complex issue that cannot be covered in one blog post, but the CBS Evening News series gave me a lot of food for thought. They posed the question, is parental spying on teen Internet use an "invasion of privacy or smart parenting?" and I wish the CBS series had given more consideration to the possibility that digital spying is a misguided parenting practice.… Read more