Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Alec Saunders' Privacy Manifesto

Really thoughtful post today from Alec Saunders that I want to draw your attention to.

Anyone who is concerned about what Facebook's Beacon initiative could lead to, or how they recently handled uber-blogger Robert Scoble should read Alec's post. Actually, it's a guest post on GigaOm, which is a great way for Alec to give back and support Om Malik as he recuperates - am not going to go there right now. I certainly wish a speedy and safe recovery for Om, and in his absence, people like Alec are stepping up and providing fresh content for his site.

I don't have much to add, and Alec does a great job laying out some of the key issues around Internet privacy, and more importantly proposes some rules of conduct and engagement - his manifesto - that would have prevented these from becoming bad situations.

As with any good blog post, the best indication of its impact is in the comments, and there are quite a few of them - well worth reading, and an indication that Alec has tackled this issue very well.

Furthermore, if you surf over to Alec's own blog, you'll see an updated post where he talks about the aftermath of this morning's post, and how the very comapanies he discussed are now part of DataPortability.org, a working group to establish guidelines and best practices for porting data from one site to another.

Great stuff, Alec - all in a day's work....


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