Riding the Wave

Google is riding the wave of world domination with its next product launch ... uh ... Google Wave, which is billed as an online portal that blends email, instant messaging, social networking and workplace collaboration in a single application.

Wave was first debuted in May, and according to C-Net is set to be rolled out to a much wider test audience today.

Tech geeks apparently had their minds blown when they first saw the application a few months back.

Again, according to C-Net, developers “compared Wave to how Google Maps (perhaps not coincidentally developed by the same people behind Google Wave) awoke developers to the possibilities presented by Ajax technologies, which had been around for some time but had yet to gain traction as some of the core technologies used to build the modern Web.”

So again, the question is what is your privacy worth? Can Google have just a little more information in exchange for some more personal data? Broadly, I’d be OK with it. Wondering what all five of my readers think.

Obama's got his Head in the Clouds

It’s a little startling, but I hardly know where any of my files are. I know how to get them, and I’m pretty confident they’re secure. But truly, I have no clue where much of my information is actually stored.

My company just moved offices. Before we did, I sat near the company’s servers where all our digital files were saved. Now our servers are “off-site” – wherever that is – and everything is available through a slightly clunky web-based system.

And it’s the same story with my personal life. I’m a heavy user of Google Docs, Gmail, etc. I have family photos, class papers, insurance documents, loan information saved … somewhere. Where? Not sure.

Without realizing it, I’ve fallen into cloud computing and it’s pretty great. I can get nearly any file mostly anywhere. Traveling, working from home, on my iPhone – virtually everything I need is accessible with little more than a password.

As with anything there are advocates and opponents from the cloud computing idea. The pro-cloud community hails it as the future of computing, increasing users’ online productivity, ability and agility. Opponents see it as, among other things, a vulnerable computing process ripe for data theft.

Perhaps both sides are right. It’s a great new tech advancement with certain vulnerabilities that need to be addressed. As a standard consumer with average computing needs, I’m OK with that.

Nevertheless, even while online privacy advocacy groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) are pressing for an FTC investigation into the safety of cloud computing, the Federal government launched Apps.gov, a website where federal agencies can access “cloud-based” IT services.

While EPIC doesn’t necessarily oppose cloud computing, it claims that Apps.gov – and really cloud computing as a concept – doesn’t adequately address issues of privacy and security, leaving sensitive information about citizens and the government vulnerable.

It’s a debate that will go on for a while, but it’s nice to see the first president to have a Blackberry is jumping into Web 2.0 – although, hopefully, with the appropriate level of caution.

Beacon of Hope

So maybe Sean Lane got what he deserved having purchased his wife’s engagement ring on Overstock.com, but what was intended as a pure act of love became the hallmark example in what ultimately unraveled what Facebook saw as a viable advertising system.

Lane, who’s internet privacy is now shot because of this incident, purchased a diamond ring for Shannon, his bride-to-be, on the high-volume discount website (classy). But without his knowledge or permission his purchase was published on his Facebook news feed through Beacon, one of FB’s advertising products.

The resulting class action court filing, Lane et al vs. Facebook, Inc, describes how it works (via CNET):

"[Whether or not] the user was not a member (of Facebook), Facebook still obtained the notification from the Facebook Beacon Activated Affiliate. Information regarding user activities was sent in real time to a third party Web site--one which was not open or active in the user's browser, and one which, in many cases, the user may never even have visited or heard of."

Got that? So basically, Facebook’s Beacon gathered personal data without users’ permission, or even their membership in Facebook, to sell to their advertising clients. And Overstock isn’t the only one, just the main whipping boy. A similar class action suit against Blockbuster Video is being heard in Texas, and a full list of Beacon clients can be found here.

In 2008 Facebook CEO had this to say about Beacon (via LA Times), "[Beacon] might take some work for us to get this exactly right, [but] is something we think is going to be a really good thing." Nevertheless, Lane et al vs. Facebook was settled last week, and not only will Beacon go dark, but Facebook will donate nearly $10 million to establish a foundation to address online privacy and safety concerns.

So chalk one up for the little guy and the privacy advocates. But what does this mean for the marketers? Will cases like this push them toward greater transparency, or further under the radar of everyday consumers? Only time will tell, but for now, privacy advocates see this as a beacon of hope.

Google v. Skank

While it’s easy to hide behind your keyboard in a veil of anonymity, the expectation of privacy may be a thing of the past.

Last month, Google faced a subpoena to reveal the identity of an anonymous user of its Blogger service (i.e., the one I’m using now) posting to the blog “Skanks in NYC,” which has since been removed. The blogger, now identified as Rosemary Port, had called model Liskula Cohen a “skank” among other choice names.

Cohen decided she wanted to sue for defamation, and pushed the New York courts to issue subpoena, forcing Google to unmask their otherwise anonymous user. Unlike the California courts, which said that “skank” is a “derogatory slang term of recent vintage [and] has no generally recognized meaning,” the New York courts determined that “skank” is a specifically defined word and that the case could move ahead.

Yet, as soon as Google revealed Port’s identity, Cohen dropped the charges. Now Port is planning to sue Google for $15 million.

And as much as I like working the word “skank” into an academically focused blog, there are some real and significant implications here. According to Matt Zimmerman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “If average users on the Internet think that they can use the court system to just figure out who is being mean to them, I think you really open the door for abusing the court system.”

We’re still very much in Wild West phase with the web, adjusting norms, expectations and regulation as it evolves. The courts need to quickly catch up to adequately protect the First Amendment and our rights as private citizens, while understanding the threshold for should and can be legitimately enforced.

(Photo of Liskula Cohen, accused skank, via New York Daily News)

We Live in Public

"Everyone wants fifteen minutes of fame every day. So we built a bunker and showed them the future.” – Joshua Harris

In the early 90s, Joshua Harris was regarded as something of an internet sage, predicting – with striking accuracy – how the web would evolve over the coming decades.

He predicted broadband internet access wouldn’t be available until the year 2000, yet created the first internet television network in 1994. Although he now admits many of his predictions, while correct, were completely made up.

In 1999, a year after the Truman Show was released, Harris began his own web reality project, which is now the subject of feature-length documentary, We Live in Public. You can catch it now through October 1 at LA's Landmark Nuart Theatre.

Taking the MTV Real World format to the ultimate extreme, Harris created an underground bunker where 100 people lived for 30 days, having their every action recorded and broadcast across the web. But unlike the Real World, the subjects had their own monitors too and could interact in real-time with the online viewers.

In a recent interview on NPR’s On the Media, the film’s director, Ondi Timoner, describes the bunker like this:

It was six floors of total chaos. There was an 80-foot-long dining room table where nightly performances occurred. There was free flowing liquor, three meals a day, a communal shower in the shape of a geodesic dome right there in the middle of a pod hotel that was full of capsules that slept over a hundred people.

Everyone had their own surveillance camera and television monitor, and they were required to wear uniforms when they checked in and answer about 500 questions

After 10 years of making sense of 5,000 hours of tape, the film is now on the film festival circuit and looking for a distributor.

But as crazy as it seems, we’re increasingly living our lives in public in much the same way. Just look at Facebook. We all have that friend we haven’t spoken to in years, but still we’ve seen her wedding photos, know the baby is adorable and even what she had for breakfast.

Whether this film is a cautionary tale, or a look into the mind of a modern-day Warhol type, one thing is certain: The idea and expectation of privacy is constantly evolving, and we’re always living in public.

And for my Next Trick

So picture this: Your job sucks, your over-worked, over-extended, under-paid, unappreciated and in debt up to your eyeballs. Your relationship is self-destructing and is quickly becoming toxic. You just want out. Now.

We have all been there on some level. And as things are crumbling down on top of you, we think about how great it would be to just disappear, go totally off the grid and start fresh someplace else with a new identity.

Easier said than done, unless your plan is to become a mountain man and life off the land.

Nevertheless, it is a tempting idea – and one that Mathew Alan Sheppard thought was his best option when he realized he was being investigated in connection with a massive extortion case. So in mid-February, he faked his own drowning and vanished, successfully living under the radar for nearly six months. But it all came undone when he started to miss his family, and the authorities used Sheppard's communication with his wife to track him down in South Dakota.

So Wired Magazine’s Evan Ratliff took this as a challenge. He wanted to see if he could go off the grid, living a “normal” life under a new identity – and whether today’s technology would make this easier or more difficult. His editor acted as the “lead detective,” feeding readers only clues actual law enforcement would have, and offering a $5000 award to whoever could locate Ratliff. His entire experience is documented here.

Ratliff left New York, altering his physical appearance and creating alternate online personae on Facebook and Twitter to evade the growing crowd hoping to find him. He posted contradictory and misleading messages, disguised his IP address, arranged fake UPS deliveries and even deceptively used his EasyPass. But it was his online footprint that was ultimately his undoing. His hunters organized on Facebook and Twitter to stitch together bits of information he left around the web to ultimately track him to a gluten-free pizza parlor in New Orleans. He describes the chase here in a great interview on NPR’s On the Media.

So what does this mean for us – those who will only fantasize about quitting life? Well, a lot actually. Ratliff was undone by a series of details he left on the web, such as his love of “The Great Gatsby” and his allergy to wheat. And we can similarly undo ourselves if we’re not aware of our digital footprint and what is out there for everyone to see. What was once heard as a parental admonishment to clean up your MySpace page, is being heard far and wide across industries and age groups. Recently the Journal of of the American Medical Association released a study showing that medical students are increasingly “unprofessional” on social networking sites

Teyana Taylor may have over-simplified it with her single “Google Me Baby,” but that is the long and the short of it. In today’s networked society, we are all findable, and whatever we put on the web stays on the web.

Ten Unread Messages

The other day, I opened up Gmail and Google told me I had 10 unread messages. But soon I realized that wasn’t quite accurate. They’ve all been read – just not by me.

With the start of September comes the beginning of classes at Columbia University, as well as the stark realization that tuition is due. One of the 10 unread messages in my inbox was a friendly reminder from the bursar to get my act together and cut a check.

But it turns out Google got to my mail first and let their advertisers know that I am a graduate student and I might need a loan. There was a subtly placed ad for a student loan at the top of my screen.

I clicked on another message, this one from a friend telling me about her job search. Google had gotten to this one too, and served up an ad for Monster.com.

But the thing is, this doesn’t really bother me. It freaks some people out, but I’m OK with a little targeted advertising in exchange for a pretty decent and free web-based email service. Not everybody agrees, and some think this is one step toward a dangerous scenario where users’ personal data is misused and vulnerable.

But all this got me to thinking: Where is this going, and where does it end? What data should remain private, and what is a fair exchange for increased usability and new services on the web?

Started as a project for a graduate class at Columbia University, this blog will take a look at the changing landscape of online privacy.