5 posts tagged “privacy”

A new survey conducted by Zogby International on behalf of the United States Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee was just published, in advance of the annual State of the Net policy conference, which is due to take place on January 31st in Washington, DC. 1,200 adults were surveyed between 1/24/07 and 1/26/07, and the results are both interesting and incredibly relevant to social media.

The survey highlights changing attitudes among 18-24 year olds in comparison to their older counterparts.  For starters, the survey shows that 18-24 year olds have very different perceptions of privacy than their older counterparts.  While 91% of the survey participants felt that expectations of privacy have changed with the introduction and usage of new technologies and the Internet, 18-24 year olds do not seem as concerned with traditional “privacy” concerns:

• Only 35.6% of 18-24 year-olds feel that it is a violation of privacy for someone else to post a picture of them in a swimsuit on-line.  This is in sharp contrast to the views of the 25+ year-old crowd, 65.5% of whom felt this was a violation of privacy.
• Similarly, 19.6% of 18-24 year-olds consider their dating profile to be an invasion of their privacy versus to 54.6% of all other respondents.

The majority of 18-24 year olds felt that children should wait “much longer to use all aspects of the Internet, including email and social networking.  More than 75% of respondents felt that children should be at least 13 years old until they are allowed to have an email address.  And, of this 75%, 40.7% of them believe that children should be at least 16 or wait until adulthood to get an email address.  65.6% of survey respondents felt that access to social networking sites should be restricted until children reach the age of 16.  More interesting still, 18-24 year olds felt more strongly about this than their older counterparts.

Commenting on the survey, Tim Lordan, executive director of the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee said:

Whether health care, e-commerce or social networking, privacy is at the forefront of every major policy debate…  This survey raises questions that could significantly impact our policymaking on privacy in years to come, assuming the MySpace generation maintains their privacy views as they age."

I find the viewpoints of the 18-24 year olds surveyed particularly interesting- especially their conservative thoughts about when children should be allowed to access the Internet.  I suspect (though can’t prove) that the conservative attitudes on this topic are the result of intense exposure to the Internet, email, and social networking sites from a young age.  18-24 year-olds are probably more aware of the dangers of the Internet than most older adults.  

The Internet became accessible to the masses and deeply incorporated into formal education about 15 or 16 years ago, making the adults who are now in the 18-24 age bracket the first group of adults who may not be able to remember a time without computers or the Internet.  In the last 5 years that on-line social networking has become popular, adults that are now 18-24 years old were in the prime of their “internet education”.  By this, I mean that most of them were either in high school or college when the Internet became a ubiquitous social networking tool.  As a result, most of them had more free time than the average older adult to experiment on-line, doing things that their parents/ teachers/ guardians had no idea about.  The Internet and social networking were made an integral part of the fabric of youth culture for the first time, and like all other aspects of youth culture, adults weren’t nearly as familiar about what was going on as the kids who were experiencing it first hand.   Like most adults looking back on their childhood, I’m guessing that the now 18-24 year olds have begun to identify the youthful indiscretions/ mistakes they made on-line and can equally appreciate the opportunities and dangers of the internet more than average older adults, who haven’t experienced the Internet in the same way as those in the younger age groups.

The 18-24 year old viewpoints about age-limits for the Internet exposed in the Zogby survey combined with Tim Lordan’s comment make me wonder what will happen with the regulation of the Internet over time.  Will the US Government eventually impose an “age limit” on obtaining certain privileges on the Internet?  Will they introduce on-line identification program, in an attempt to “protect” children?  Neither of these options seems viable, given the “open” and multi-national nature of the Internet.  

In my post on January 18, I talked about the need for parents to protect their children from the dangers of the internet, while at the same time promoting personal accountability and responsibility.  I continue to believe that it is important for parents to make decisions about how their kids use the Internet. I also believe that worldwide governments or an international agency comprised of industry experts and child welfare advocates should provide guidelines to parents (not unlike is done for television or movie ratings).  However, I believe that if the government tries to regulate the Internet too closely, it will turn into a bureaucratic nightmare.  In my opinion, it is impossible for anyone, besides parents to “police” the Internet for children.  Others can only help the cause. To do this, security education and features should be made freely and easily available to parents from the moment they buy a new computer or download a new browser.

I was trying to come up with ideas for how security features could be made more easily available to parents.  The US government could help with this, mandating that all OEMs offer a specific level of security features with the sale of each computer.  They could also ensure that anytime a new browser is downloaded that owners have the option of installing the same level of security features.  So, when parents buy a computer or download a new browser, they are prompted to assign a password to each of their children and set up certain privileges/ levels of privacy - i.e.:

• Kevin – Age 8 – Password= DogCat22. Only able to access X,Y, Z website, and parental notification and activity logging is on. No email access allowed.
• Jenny- Age 13- Password= Hocus24Pocus. Able to access any website that is considered “safe” by the installed kid-safe screening software, but parental notification and activity logging is on.  Email access allowed to/from the following addresses: X, Y, Z (or to/from anyone at A,B,C domain – e.g. a child’s school) or between X-Y time on Z date when parent will be with child helping research.
  
• Peter – Age 16 - Password= 276BasketballFootball. Able to access any website, but parental notification is on.  Open email access to all addresses but parental notification will notify parents of who child is emailing. Not allowed to download a new browser.
• Amy – Age 18 – Password= Seven8Six.  Open access. No parental screening. Not allowed to download a new browser.
  

I'm sure the ACLU would disagree, but with a system like this, kids would actually have to talk to their parents about what they’re up to on-line and vice versa.  Similarly, parents would have the ultimate control on what their kids are allowed to do on-line and the ability to change these settings as/when appropriate (and preferably via their mobile phone from the road or their PC from work).  I'd much prefer to see a system like this than an overly legislated set of laws, that like the driving/drinking/smoking ages seem arbitrary and discourage personal responsibility.

Thanks to technology and the Internet, the world is becoming increasingly transparent and accessible.  Social media is playing an important role in this transformation.  So far, most people seem to be responding to the power of social media favorably, and they’re using the power of social media for good.  However, there is a risk that the pendulum could shift in the other direction over time.  Below are the "5 Deadly Sins" of social media - pitfalls that proponents of social media should watch out for and proactively advocate against:

• Market saturation: There is a proliferation of social networking sites available – lots of sites are competing for users time.  Marketers are creating new social networking sites in record numbers to promote their products, and the number of traditional social networking sites (MySpace, YouTube, Bebo, Gather, WAYN, CyWorld, etc.) are also growing.  Users often use different for the same purpose but to meet different people.  If the market becomes overly fragmented, it may become less useful and more burdensome to user.  I hope that a natural market consolidation will happen eventually, but in the meantime, the industry runs the risk of users “burning out” from having to juggle too many different websites, on-line “friends”, different profile inputting tools, and passwords.
• Exploitation of social media at the expense of others: Social media makes it easier than ever to share information on-line.  While, the power of information sharing is good, it can also be dangerous in the wrong hands, enabling: fraud, misrepresentation of identity, identity theft, sexual exploitation, and unethical sharing of corporate or government secrets.  I just read an interesting article on the security risk that social media presents to corporations.  The same is true for governments and individuals.  The “Star Wars Kid”  and Paris Hilton were two of the first people to learn a thing or two about that.
• Eradication of privacy: This one is closely linked to the bullet point above on exploitation, but I felt it deserved its own section because it goes beyond exploitation because what is considered private to one person, isn’t necessarily considered private to another.  The Washingtonienne case is a good example of this.  Another example is that anyone can get an aerial photograph of your house at Google Maps or go to Zillow to find out what your house is worth.  Add location based social media services and mobile phones into the mix, and tracking people's location becomes easy via services like Helio's Buddy Beacon and Dodgeball.  While these are great services and they offer opt-in privacy, it's scary to think what could happen if either service were hacked.  Alternatively, imagine the damage that would result if someone's location information got into the wrong hands or was commandeered by a "friend" turned stalker. 
  
• Opportunistic litigation: Lawsuits like those filed earlier this week against News Corp. pose a strong threat to the health of social media.  If cases like these succeed, the rulings will send a dangerous message to the public: “You’re not responsible for your own safety or the safety of your children.  Someone else is.”  Unjustified lawsuits also stifle technical innovation and have the potential to strangle social media with excessive amounts of red tape.
• Opaque Marketing: Marketers are becoming more sophisticated about the ways that they use social media to their advantage.  It is already difficult to avoid pop-ups and other advertisements on-line.  And, with some social media sites, it difficult to tell what is advertising versus what is genuine, unbiased opinion.  Take, for example, bloggers who get paid by companies to evangelize products (I don’t, but a lot do).  Advertising on social media sites isn’t nearly as transparent as it should be, and social media runs the risk of being tarnished by overzealous marketers.

1/22/07 UPDATE: Thanks everyone for your insightful comments.  I just read a great article by Mark Zielinski, a UK-based security engineer.  The article talks about the threat that social media poses to corporate security.  In the article, Mark talks about how employees use their work computers to check their social networking pages and that this poses a threat to corporate networks.  Unsurprisingly, employees checking social media sites rather than doing work probably, has an impact on productivity - even more so than personal email. With these two points in mind, I'd like to add "Bringing Down the Corporation" as the 6th deadly sin of Social Media.

It's been a slow news week in the world of social media and social networking - what, with the holidays, people are spending time with real life friends and family, rather than at work or with their on-line network.  But, there is one social media/ social networking story that is still making headlines and drawing crowds of millions with wide eyes and dropped jaws this week - yep - the 'Washingtonienne' case.  For those of you social media-ites who have been living under a rock, click here to read the latest on the status of the lawsuit, which is proving just as elicit and sexually-charged as the blog that sparked it.

In my opinion, this case is thoroughly ridiculous and a waste of the court's time.  Apparently, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman feels the same way:

"I don't know why we're here in federal court to begin with," Friedman told attorneys for both sides in April. "I don't know why this guy thought it was smart to file a lawsuit and lay out all of his private, intimate details."

Despite this frivolity and mis-use of the already over-burdened court system, I'm concerned by the way the outcome of this trial may impact social media and the way that bloggers and other social networkers freely express themselves.  I don't believe in hanging out dirty laundry to dry in a public forum, but this is America, and if someone wants to do that, it's their right, so long as what they're saying is, in fact, true.  However, I also agree with

Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center:

"Anybody who wants to reveal their own private life has a right to do that. It's a different question when you reveal someone else's private life," he said, adding that simply calling something a diary doesn't make it one. "It's not sitting in a nice, leather-bound book under a pillow. It's online where a million people can find it.

That said, if you want your private life to stay that way, it is advisable to know a little something about the integrity and personal habits of a girlfriend/boyfriend before you share your "private" life with them.  Apparently, Robert Steinbuch didn't.  According to the AP:

"Cutler, a former aide to Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, says she created the blog in 2004 to keep a few friends up to date on her social life. Like a digital version of the sex-themed banter from a "Sex and the City" episode, Cutler described the thrill and tribulations of juggling sexual relationships with six men."

What will the outcome of this case mean to social media in the long term?  Only time will tell.  In the meantime, the case highlights the importance of personal accountability.  In summary - It's not nice to kiss and tell, but if you're stupid enough to get involved with someone who clearly has a history of kissing and telling, don't be surprised to read about yourself in their blog.

While sites like YouTube and many video search engines allow anyone to view videos, other sides like Grouper.com (based in Sausalito, CA and recently purchased by Sony) enable privacy settings.  I also like Grouper because it allows members to add video to any website or their MySpace, Facebook, Y!360, Friendster, and Blogger pages. Plus, with Grouper, users can control privacy settings on specific videos so that they can't be seen by just anyone.

Privacy in video is important - not just because it allows users to control who sees them/ their video, but it also has the potential to give social media companies the ability to add revenue enhancing features to their sites and explore revenue based partnerships.  I was thinking about this the other day with singshot.com, which is kind of like American Idol, but available on-line.  Singshot provides karaoke-esque background instrumentals, and users sing along. The resulting tracks are posted on-line, and members of the public can vote on them and provide feedback.  The downside with the site is that there is NO VIDEO!  Depending on their subscriber numbers, if Singshot were to add video, they may have the potential for a whole new revenue model.  They could continue to let any member of the public listen to and vote on audio tracks, but they could also offer a premium (paid for subscription service), enabling only those who pay to see, vote and comment on video. Alternatively, they could charge performers a subscription fee (which could include the cost of a webcam) to post video in order to get feedback on style, dance routines, etc.

In addition, to allowing personal privacy, social media "privacy" features are attractive to Mobile Operators, who want to differentiate themselves from their competition. Web-based Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) in the social media space who strive for mobile enablement should be thinking carefully about privacy.  In my experience, mobile operators haven't yet seen the potential of social media to increase revenues and user bases.  Therefore, it hasn't been a huge push for mobile enabled social media.  This is changing.  As this change happens, one thing is almost certain, the social media ISVs that win the mobile game will have thought about privacy.  Mobile operators want to differentiate their service offerings from their competition, and in the social media world, one of the few ways to do that is by offering unique content.  Social media ISVs don't want to make custom versions of their software for every OEM and Mobile operator out there because doing so limits the number of users that can interact, which defeats the usefuleness and viral spread of social media - especially social networking AND, it increases the amount of work that goes into software development and maintenance. I think the way to get around this is through privacy. 

By having different privacy settings, users on different mobile networks would be able to see different premium content and features than those on other networks - say videos, etc..  This would mean that members of the "public" would still be able to access specific sites, but they may not be able to "see" or "do" certain "premium" things from their mobile phone without being a "subscriber" to a particular mobile operator or have a particular type of mobile phone.  I'm not advocating segmenting the market in this way, but doing so may be one way to grab the mobile market, which is difficult to penetrate without carrier buy-in.  In my experience, the only way to get mobile operator buy-in is by guarenteeing increased revenue (through increased subscribers and paid-for software/subscription opportunities).

I was just looking at the title of my first blog "A blog about blogging and other social media", when it suddenly struck me that my "great" idea to have "a blog about blogging" isn't much different than Cosmo Kramer's (Seinfeld) idea to write a coffee table book about coffee tables. 

I'd planned to write today's blog about the use of video in social networking, so when I had the Kramer revelation, I decided that it was only fitting for me to showcase the video clip where Kramer conceives his idea.  I went to youtube.com, blinkx.com, searchvideo.com, furl.com, revver.com - you name a video site, I couldn't find the clip I was looking for.  The best I was able to come up with was the above link to wikipedia and another site with the script to the episode: number 074. 

The script isn't what I was looking for.  I wanted to show the video - complete with all of Kramer's mannerisms and dramatic pause.  This brings me to my point - written word is great, but video is often more descriptive.  If you've seen the Seinfeld episode that I'm talking about, click on the above link, search for "coffee table" and read the script. You'll see what I mean.  If you haven't seen the episode and you read the part of the script that I'm talking about, you'll probably have one of those moments we've all had before where someone tries to tell you a funny story that doesn't sound all that funny and ends with "guess you had to be there", and we'll both feel like we're "bowling alone". 

The beauty of video integration with social media is that it gives people one more piece of information, allowing multiple people to "see" the exact same thing and encouraging a more common shared experience.  Written word alone doesn't do that to the same extent.  Take, as an example, one of the most interesting forms of social media / social networking: on-line dating (sites like match.com, eharmony.com, okcupid.com, plentyoffish.com, etc.).  Users complain that it is impossible for users to gauge chemistry without seeing someone in person.  People are more than their picture and written word.  While, no one that I know wants to see a video of someone talking un-naturally into a camera, someday, users may have the ability to upload videos of themselves doing things they enjoy (playing sports, acting, talking to friends at a social occasion, etc.).  Or, you may see the enablement video chat.  Either way, video has the potential to be used in new ways.

Hmmm... All this talk of video is making me think about how I don't want just anyone accessing videos of me on-line.   More of my ideas on video (and privacy) in social media in my next blog.