louisgray.com - Latest Comments in louisgray.com: Forget About Privacy. Embrace Openness.

Re: louisgray.com: Forget About Privacy. Embrace Openness.

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:00:00 -0000

This is an incredibly naive viewpoint:
1. Because you are comfortable publicizing things you do doesn't mean others feel the same way.
2. The logical extension of your argument ends up somewhere like this: you are happy for me to find out where you live. By looking at your public GCal I could also find out when you are not home and go and rob your house.
3. Privacy is not a privilege, it is a basic human right. This is why people get upset when an ex-lover posts sex tapes in a public forum. It is also why we have things like the data protection act.
4. No-one is necessarily saying the feature shouldn't be there, but that it should have been implemented with more consideration.
5. Google is currently demonstrating that it is less concerned with user's views than flexing its muscle, which is exactly how Microsoft became unpopular.

(Guess what, I'm posting this anonymously, because blogger gives me the right to do so)

Re: louisgray.com: Forget About Privacy. Embrace Openness.

louisgray — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:46:00 -0000

MG, it's true. The issue there is that there isn't a true "open social" for all your friends. That you and I talk to each other using Apple Mail doesn't mean it's tracked by Google's GMail. The Friends list assumes we're all on GMail, and even recent stats show Yahoo! mail well ahead in total subscribers.

And Harrison, you're absolutely right, especially re: Spokeo. I heard one person call it "Spook-eo" as to how deep you could find the info.

Re: louisgray.com: Forget About Privacy. Embrace Openness.

twhman — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:32:00 -0000

I think when people are sharing something publicly, they think that very few people can find and see their content. This sense of pseudo-privacy used to hold true, but with the new generation of technology like Spokeo, info barriers are crumbling down. And public content will be easier and easier to find.

Re: louisgray.com: Forget About Privacy. Embrace Openness.

MG Siegler — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:18:00 -0000

And in yet another show of how Google's contact system doesn't work for something like this, I don't have you on my Google Reader "friends" list and you don't have me even though we talk all the time.

I'm with you on sharing thing being a non-issue and misunderstanding on users parts, but Google really need to fix how their contact management system works if they want to get any footing in the social sphere.