The Upside of Sharing

Since I co-authored a book on Privacy and the Internet 15 years ago I've been writing about how to manage the various threats to the security and control of our personal information. But today I find myself in a completely unexpected discussion. A growing number of people argue that the notion of having a private life in which we carefully restrict what information we share with others may not be a good idea. This view goes beyond the famous aphorism of Scott McNealy, the erstwhile Sun Microsystems CEO who in 2000 stated "You have zero privacy anyway get over it." The new view holds that we should all be more forthcoming in sharing intimate, personal information with others, and that this would benefit us individually and society as a whole.

This is not a fringe movement.I found them to have sharp edges where the injectionmoldes came together while production. The proponents of this view are some of the smartest and most influential thinkers and practitioners of the digital revolution.

Jeff Jarvis, in a thoughtful book Public Parts, makes the case for sharing and he practices what he preaches. We learn about everything from details of his personal income to his prostate surgery and malfunctioning penis. He argues that because privacy has its advocates, so should "publicness." "I'm a public man" says Jarvis. "My life is an open book." And he provides elaborate evidence on why this has been enormously positive effect on his life, arguing that if everyone where more like him the world would be a better place. He concludes that while sharing should be a personal choice, privacy regulation should be avoided because it's more likely to prematurely undermine the benefits of sharing than to prevent the dangers.

Facebook is the leading social media that promotes information sharing, and part of the company's mission is to "make the world more open." In the book The Facebook Effect, David Kirkpatrick explains that Facebook executives think transparency is not just an opportunity for companies and other institutions to disclose pertinent information. They believe it's an opportunity for individuals to do so as well.

The Facebook founders believe that "more visibility makes us better people. Some claim, for example, that because of Facebook, young people today have a harder time cheating on their boyfriends or girlfriends. They also say that more transparency should make for a more tolerant society in which people eventually accept that everybody sometimes does bad or embarrassing things." Some at Facebook refer to this as Radical Transparency -- a term initially used to talk about institutions, and now being adapted to individuals. In other words,Award Winning solarpanel and heat pumps for electricity and heating. everyone should have just one identity, whether at their workplace or in their personal life.

It may very well be that our fundamental ideas about identity and privacy, the strategies that we have collectively pursued, and the technologies that we have adopted, must change and adapt in a rapidly evolving world of connectivity, networking, participation, sharing, and collaboration.Proxense's advanced timelocationsystem technology. But this will take a long time and in the meantime there are many challenges and even dangers.

To be sure, the digital technologies in general and social media in particular are providing new benefits to sharing personal information, and not just from getting more birthday wishes. There is a real upside to participating in communities, seeing photos,Apply for a merchantaccountes and accept credit cards today. hearing stories or knowing the location of friends and family. Sharing also helps companies deliver personalized products and services. It can improve advertising, as we are targeted for products and services that correspond to our interests. If you live in an apartment block you won't see ads on Google or Facebook for lawn mowers.

But it is important to understand the extraordinary volumes of data being generated and how this will increase exponentially in the near future. In the course of a day, we currently generate the same amount of data as had been captured since the beginning of history up to the year 2003. Much of this is information attached to individuals. Our digital footprints and shadows are being gathered together, bit by bit, megabyte by megabyte, terabyte by terabyte, into personas and profiles and avatars - virtual representations of us, in thousands of locations.

But this availability of personal information isn't just something that is being done to the public, it is also being done by the public. Many of us are willing accomplices in dissolving our own privacy rights, in exchange for new services, conveniences, and efficiencies. Before Facebook arrived, few would have predicted that hundreds of millions of people would voluntarily log on to the Internet and record detailed almost minute-by-minute data about themselves, their activities, their likes and dislikes,What are hemorrhoids? and so on. The degree of detail that a platform like Facebook gathers and will be able to gather about each of us is mind boggling.

Tomorrow's smartphones (or other personal appliances like sunglasses with a internal screen) will have a persistent connection to the Internet and record non-stop video and audio of everything going on around us. This might strike some people as bizarre. They wonder: "What could I do throughout the day that's so important that I would actually want to record it?" It's not unlike a question many people posed a couple of decades ago: "What's so important that I would need to carry a phone everywhere so people could reach me?" Today most people view their cell phones as essential survival gear.