Alex Kelleher’s Blog

A couple of things came to light today, which all seem tied together by the common thread private data.

Firstly, I noticed ma.gnolia.com was down. Aside from a frustrating domain name, they had a reasonably successful social bookmarking service. Sadly, due to lack of backup (!), they’ve lost the majority of the bookmarks/favorites that they stored on behalf of their users…

Bang, useful personal data gone.

Secondly, I tuned into “More or Less” a great statistics-focussed radio show on the BBC, on a recommendation from my Dad. Aside from a really great interview with the author of “Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air” which I’ll write about another time, the presenter mentioned Daytum. Setup by the Nicholas Feltron, the guy who exposes his personal stats meticulously collated and designed up at feltron.com each year, the site enables you to have your own “Personal Dashboard”.

Thirdly, I spotted an ad which had a “YouData” logo on it. Smelling a 2.0 startup, I checked out the site - and yes, it’s a (US based) service that lets you sell your attention – the old “pay me to advertise at me” model, but brought up to date.

So how do these strands tie together? Well, they are all about people realising that their own data is:

1. Valuable and useful to them
2. Valuable and useful to others
3. Therefore, has a monetary value

Problem is, losing bookmarks at Magnolia is a greater value by some margin than what someone like YouData would pay for that data. And so that’s the opportunity – finding a way to bridge the gap between how much I value my data and time, and how much others (typically advertisers) value it. The answer may be that in most cases, that gap can’t be bridged?lady gaga poker face

I’ve been interviewed twice now (on local radio, nothing too mind-blowing) about Google Street Maps and Privacy.

On one level, it’s the same knee-jerk reaction that happened when the service launched States-side.  A lot of stuff about “what if I’m captured coming out of X-place, or holding hands with Y”.  Well, here’s the news:  it won’t usually be Google StreetMaps that catches us out on those moments…

On another level, stories of people stopping or barricading the Google StreetMaps car have made people think there might be something more to this – and when Google move to countries where privacy is a bigger issue, what will happen then?

My take on this: privacy IS being eroded, on a daily basis, around the world.   That’s just a fact.  Google can blur as many faces as it wants, but I’m being tracked by cameras, URL tracking software, mobile/cellphone masts – and guess what, Google: my car, my branded van (if I had one), my house are all still personally identifiable.

Two things make this loss of privacy okay:

• The technology that comes with it (including StreetMaps) outweighs the risks by a seriously large factor
• There is SO MUCH DATA, that no-one and nothing can really do anything that worrying or invasive with it.  There’s too much of it being gathered, and most of it is never looked at.  At least for now, and in countries that don’t have some sort of evil regime in power…

It may be the fact that Google is doing it to make money, but essentially they’re just putting online what we can walk to on our own two legs and see for ourselves.  So let’s calm down, enjoy the benefits, and only go out at night with a hoodie pulled over our faces.