sinéad's lifestream

As part of the Darklight Festival over the weekend a number of symposiums were held to discuss and debate various popular topics related to the online world. I was invited to be a member of the audience by the organisers and found the experience to be rather… interesting.

Privacy vs. Publicity in the Virtual World

Daniel Solove, author of “The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet” (available for free here) opened this discussion with various anecdotes pertaining to the negative effects of personal details being shared online, either on purpose i.e. through your personal blog, or without the person’s consent e.g. the Star Wars Kid. Coming from a background in law, Solove suggests that the only way to curtail personal details being posted online without your consent is by the threat of legal action being more heavily employed.

“Be responsible”

Solove suggests that allowing anonymity online is irresponsible as it removes any control we have over our personal data (e.g. intimate personal details being posted online without consent) and that the law can only do so much to provide protection. For example, while it may be possible for a photographer to have an unapproved photo removed from an unlicensed website, the individual in the photo has no legal standing. This is because copyright law is much more powerful than privacy law.

“Intertwined with the lives of others”

Solove described how we all have expectations of privacy and anonymity in public, despite always being exposed and how this notion of privacy is mistakenly expected online. Claiming that 50% of bloggers were under the age of 19, he described these Internet users as “Generation Google” – individuals that have had their lives chronicled online, leaving behind fragments of their past that are pervasive and destructive to their future.

Opinion

I disagree with Solove’s judgment that anonymity is irresponsible on the part of ISP’s and websites that encourage and allow it. Anonymity online has always provided Internet users with a constructive means for liberal expression and play, without the risk of social impairment. Though anonymity provides users the facility to post lies online without any apparent risk (except in a serious case where your IP address might be used against you), the power of an anonymous message is certainly not as strong as a message coming from a reputable source.

“Generation Google” is something that I myself am a part of, but it is a heavily constructed and thought out self, which is something anyone reading a blog or a social networking profile needs to consider. Using google search results as a basis for a decision on a job or college applicant is something that I would consider irresponsible, and lazy. Nothing we post online is a 100% true reflection of ourselves, imagine a youthful, boastful comment left on a friend’s social networking profile that might actually be sarcastic or part of an in-joke. It’s all about context, and if the context is unknown then the information is invalid. It is lazy to think otherwise.

Panel Discussion

Following this keynote address was a panel discussion chaired by Caroline Campbell, featuring Jim Carroll, Cormac Callanan, Niall Larkin (read his thoughts on this symposium here) and Damien “almost blogs for a living” Mulley. Daithí Mac Sithigh was also in the audience and has written up a great summary of the panel discussion.

“Whatever goes on the Internet stays on the Internet”

The most prevalent message from this one-sided discussion was that everything you do online is being used to build behavioural profiles for marketing and advertising. On Facebook (and probably other social networking websites) your actions are logged and combined with your profile information for contextual marketing and advertising. Sophisticated data mining tools are used in Gmail and other free online services. Law enforcement in the US use these data mining techniques to track down possible terrorists and it was suggested that all of these combined could lead to surveillance and stalking by commercial and non-commercial companies for negative reasons, debt-collection is an example used by a member of the audience.

Privacy in this instance is not about the actual collection of the data, it’s what happens to it afterwards. Suggestions were made that it would be preferable to have access to this profile and to be notified when your data is being accessed and by whom. However, when Mulley asked the audience “Who actually cares?” a minority raised their hands.

Opinion

In my opinion, many of the members of the panel seemed to be scaremongering the audience. It would have been a more interesting discussion if even one of the members of the panel was under 30 (correct me if I’m wrong). All of them seemed quite outraged by the idea that their personal details and behaviour online could be used to help companies make more money. I would argue that there are many positive things about this type of data mining, for example, attempts (unsuccessful so far) at contextualising advertising on websites such as Facebook.

Contextual ads make advertisements entertaining and informative. Personally, I’d rather this than being bombarded with irrelevant ads (like when I watch television). However, this does not mean that the advertising is more successful because of this. Despite the fear of behavioural profiles being sold to marketing and advertising executives, these sets of data are in no way accurate at predicting human behaviour. Behaviour changes on a daily basis and can’t be actualised using selective pieces of information we ourselves post into the likes of social networking websites. Our reactions to advertising and products can change based on far too many variables for a behavioural profile to predict.

Websites like Facebook and Google give us a service and our payment to them is our content. Without our content these websites are completely useless and no-one would be willing to pay for them. It’s naive for anyone to think that you can get something for nothing online and if you’ve nothing to hide, why be so afraid of a little data mining? How does this even affect your every day life? I would argue that it doesn’t. It’s a pity the panel were so strongly of the opinion that it was 100% negative. I do however agree that users signing up to these services might need to be informed more readily of the fact that their data might be used in this manner.

The question is – Do you care? (Take a second to Take the poll or leave a comment below).

In a bold move (inspired by my wonderful foe – procrastination) I’ve begun using Twitter – it’s like mini-blogging. So, if anyone is interested in finding out what I’ve been up to between blog posts, you can find out here. Although, I will warn you – if you’re a certain lecturer expecting a certain topic for a certain research proposal on Friday – do NOT click that link. Recently I started using Linkedin too – for social networking in professional circles.

It’s really interesting how different the web is to the Internet I first started using as a teen. Today there are so many incredible communications and social networking tools available online, but it has always seemed like everyone in the States have been consistently 100’s of steps ahead of us (the Irish) with regard to embracing these as valid methods of communication and expression. Although, 10 years ago I could barely manage to find a synchronous online conversation with anyone – because everyone was asleep after that faithful 6pm-the-dial-up-charges-are-cheaper hour. At least times are starting to change and there are a few (definitely not comparable to the Americans) Irish people using the likes of LinkedIN and Twitter.

When I really got thinking about it though, I realised how many different communication and social networking tools I had embraced in the past. It goes a little something like below…

E-mail address @ hotmail > Newsgroups > Chat Rooms @ Yahoo! > mIRC chat > American Message Boards > Home Page with Guestbook @ Geocities > E-mail address @ Yahoo! > Yahoo! Messenger > Own Group with Message Boards and Chat @ Yahoo! > MSN Messenger > Irish Message Boards > Livejournal > MySpace > Blog @ own hosting site > Youtube > Bebo > E-mail address @ Gmail > Gtalk > Facebook > Second Life > Flickr > LinkedIN > Twitter

It’s a strange progression as you move from one online communications technology to the next, thriving on the newness of each new site. But like all things, boredom soon sets in or your motivation for interacting with it diminishes and you move on. Even the Irish Bebo explosion, at least in my own social circles, has become recently very subdued. Which is surprising as I had assumed the new features (facebook like applications) would bring everyone back into the fold.

What causes so many of these once “revolutionary” websites to fall to the wayside? How is it that something new can come along and steal all your users/customers? Why aren’t interfaces upgraded and features added and removed? Why weren’t they tracking trends online to keep up with change? When there are existing social networks in place, wouldn’t it just be easier for us all to stay in one place, rather than moving to the next “big thing”.

I just spotted this rather interesting advertisement on Facebook. I wonder if my own face will be appearing along side the products and services that I am a fan of. I wonder what Tim thinks of his endorsement.

Tim is in my network of friends, so I assume this is why this ad has been targeted towards me. I must admit, it got my attention pretty quick and I’m very impressed. It is neither intrusive nor annoying because I actually care what my friends online might be a fan of, though, for those on FB with 100′s of friends they don’t actually know, this might be a tad annoying, especially if they are incompatible taste wise. Not like Timmy and I!

It’s a pity the ad wasn’t targeted enough to know that I’m already a fan of Phantom.

It’s a real pity that it has come to this, but I’ve decided to set my social networking profiles to private – meaning, you can’t see me ,unless I can see you! Though I’ve never accepted a friend request from someone I didn’t know in one way or another.

The reason? Well, as if this wasn’t scary enough… I have come to the realisation that although I can control what *I* say online, I can NOT control what my friends say (those vile fiends!). I’m quite certain that I don’t want any prospective employers viewing the disturbing genital-based-whiteboard drawings they’ve been known to doodle or the perpetual cock-blocks.

Google has paid out $900 million to provide search results and ad listings on MySpace.com (read more…). Basically, this means that MySpace users will be able to use Google Search without having to leave www.myspace.com – entering any term into the search box directs myspace users to a page similar to this one, the Google ads appear in the form of sponsored listings in the search results. This will be of major benefit to Google as an additional source of traffic and ad revenue. Almost 100 million MySpace members will access Google’s search tool from the network, thus viewing ads relevant to their search terms.

Google will also provide contextually targeted placements on MySpace pages. Unlike the search box functionality, this has yet to be implemented. Considering Google’s policies on not administering pop-up advertisements (and the Google Toolbar that actually attempts to blocks pop-ups – emphasis on the attempt, as my own Google Toolbar still allows Dell ads from MySpace to appear) this suggests an end to pop-ups on MySpace.

Personally, I’m hoping it is also an end to “interesting” animated banner and skyscraper ads for online dating websites – for example this monstrosity. Also, ads that are misleading and direct the user to install rogue anti-spyware/adware/malware products. Currently, these ads still exisit on MySpace. Just recently Google has started warning people when search results could potentially lead them to malicious code, if these ads continue to appear on MySpace, perhaps these warning signs should be displayed when your search term is “myspace”.

MySpace.com currently sits at number 14 in the Alexa.com Top 500 most popular websites online. I predict that MySpace will begin falling in popularity after introducing pop-up advertisements that counteract pop-up blocking toolbars, and browsers.

I simply do not understand how a legitimate website can FORCE it’s distracting advertisements upon a user. Pop-ups are a nuisance to web surfers, intruding upon a users web surfing experience. A user that occasionally uses the Internet may not necessarily be annoyed by pop-ups, but the more a person uses the Internet, the more pop-ups they see and the more annoying and less effective as advertising tools these pop-ups become.

In the last 10 minutes of using MySpace I have had to close 5 different pop-ups, despite using Mozilla Firefox (which blocks the pop-ups automatically). So MySpace.com have taken away my right to CHOOSE if I want to see pop-up ads or not. This, is not an acceptable practice for a legitimate website. If the top 5 websites online (Yahoo!, MSN, Google, Yahoo! Japan and Baidu.com) do not contain pop-up advertisements, how can a website that’s in the Top 20 risk using pop-ups?

MySpace.com may gain some additional revenue by forcing pop-ups on its users – but in the long run, it will simply force users away from the site to competitors like MsnSpaces, Friendster etc,. It already suffers from long periods of downtime and a slow loading time, just because it is at the top today, does not mean it will remain there.