The Privacy Issue
Information is the currency of the decade and perhaps the century. Simply put, second to hard products (anything you can buy and hold) information is the second most lucrative market around. Companies pay for studies on just about everything under the sun and companies like Gartner, Forrester Research and many others have long realized this and put out lots of reports on a weekly basis to fill the need.
Privacy is a sticky issue and ultimately it is about control of one of the few things that is truly yours or at least it is till you give that information over to someone else.
We all learned these lessons long ago on the playgrounds of our youths when we told someone a secret and they found more power in sharing that secret rather then in building our sense of trust in them by keeping our confidence. However despite the lessons of our youth one can not seem to exist today without sharing some of their information with others and or systems which may or may not be worthy of our trust.
So where does ones expectation of privacy end and legitimate web commerce begin? Does the couple who buys a house on a private road have the right to sue Google Maps because the system host photos of a house that anyone of us could see just by strolling down their un-gated street? Should Google pay the price when even better images were already part of the public record at the local county assessors office.
Facebook and many social networking sites have faced their share of privacy issues however a lawsuit filed just this week which claims on page one to be about Facebook’s violation of California privacy law seems in the eyes of Eric Goldman, an Associate Professor, Santa Clara University School of Law, to be a, “rant-y complaint from users who seem to dislike all of Facebook’s product choices”. Mike Masnick of TechDirt is quick to point out that, “there’s an easy way to avoid any such issue. It’s called not using Facebook.”
Seems logical and straight forward enough, if you do not want your information shared do not give it out beyond trusted and or regulated systems. If you send an email you know it is going through other systems in route to its eventual destination. Want more secure transmission then encrypt, use the US postal service and or your trusted man servant to deliver it.
But despite the obvious insecurities and or flaws in the systems we all continue to be willing to trust or perhaps over trust systems and companies.
Simply put to not trust some of these systems puts you at a disadvantage. The US postal service is perhaps one of the most secure ways to send private information (backed up by federal law) however if we are both bidding on the same job and I email mine (using my trusty gmail account) my bid will get there faster. Likewise you can choose not to participate in social networking but to some extent you are only hurting yourself.
My brother in law, an author, got a good lesson in the potential and hence potential loss from opting out when this week he sent me a clipping of an article on his latest book, “Deep Travel: In Thoreau’s Wake on the Concord and the Merrimac.” Now despite the fact that my wife’s Facebook profile and post are protected by Facebook’s quite elaborate privacy settings the simple act of posting a link to the article above and my commenting on it has lead to several sales of the book from friends and friends of friends who picked up the link in their feeds.
Both my wife and her brother would be quick to point out their own concerns for privacy however at some point this issue of privacy can also leave you chained in Plato’s cave facing a blank wall where shadows projected are of things displayed but never truly seen.
Every entrepreneur knows nothing venture and nothing gained. You can not meet that girl, boy, person if you do not give them your name however the moment you do, you give up some of your privacy.
The question really is whether the risk is greater then the potential gain and are you really aware of your risk? Now I would argue that no one will safeguard your privacy as well as yourself and in fact allowing senseless waste of our legal systems time to protect you is not achieving anything.
We all give up some of privacy everyday in simple and common actions, the question is are you aware of your privacy and do you control it or does it control you. Facebook has some elaborate privacy settings (so does Linkedin and every other good social networking platform) but I am willing to bet that a vast majority of readers have done little or nothing to adjust these settings giving access to valuable private data like maiden names (mothers maiden names) and other facts classically used in security questions. For that matter most people still use a password that is clearly tied to facts found there as well.
So the question really is who issue is the privacy issue?
Will we chain ourselves and our providers of information services to a system that will regulate and prevent slips of private information or can we take charge ourselves by limiting the information we put out there and who we share it with?
Are you and your company looking to your privacy issues and what is needed to assure you maximize opportunities and limit exposure/risk?
- Social Network Users Reportedly Concerned About Privacy, but Behavior Says Otherwise (readwriteweb.com)
- Tips on managing online passwords (medicineandtechnology.com)
- Social Networks Keep Privacy in the Closet (technologyreview.com)





So when I got an email from him today pointing out (I had not yet seen ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b6848ed2-8f7d-4685-bfc5-7f96e50ed394)

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Jake Winett, Global Industry Manager, Media & Entertainment, Communications Sector, Microsoft Corporation: As industry manager for the Media & Entertainment business in the Communications Sector at Microsoft, Jake Winett is responsible for driving strategy, messaging and business development of world-class software solutions for the film and television broadcast industries. Winett works with different business and product groups across Microsoft to combine technologies to help drive new and better ways for media & entertainment organizations to realize their potential in the new digital age. Prior to joining Microsoft, Winett spent six years as director of operations for Media.net Communications, Inc., a workflow technology company which delivers high-end real-time collaboration solutions to television and film production companies and studios around the world. Winett began his career in software development at ImMix (now part of Accom). He has also held software and product development positions at Autodesk and Adobe. Winett holds a bachelor’s degree from California State University Long Beach, where he graduated cum laude
or Electronic Distribution Services and is responsible for all online content delivery marketing strategy as well as for directing service specifications and platform functional design. Mr. Langford has extensive and diverse electronic content acquisition and distribution experience and has worked domestically and abroad in the Telco, MSO and Broadcast markets for both vendor and service providers alike. Mr. Langford was VP of Product Development for the innovative MovieBeam Video on Demand network. He developed the VoD, HDTV and IPTV product strategy for UPC Cablecom in Switzerland. He also led the Broadband Entertainment division at Swisscom (the incumbent Swiss Telco) for three years. While at Swisscom, he was a key figure in the development and deployment of the IPTV roll-out, designing the TVoDSL offer and negotiating all of Swisscom’s worldwide content and OEM contracts (set-top box, middleware - Microsoft TV - and system integrator contracts). Mr. Langford earned an MBA with concentration in IT and Marketing from the Harvard Business School in 1991. He now resides in Los Angeles, CA with his wife and two sons.
Yahav Isak, Director of Interactive Production, JWT: Yahav has over fourteen years of experience in the digital medium from website development to fully integrated marketing programs. Prior to JWT Yahav headed TBWA\ TEQUILA\ Interactive group where he was overseeing the project management as well as production disciplines. Managing clients such as: Sprint Nextel, Disney, Chivas, Jameson and Hotels.com. Prior to that, Yahav headed the project management group at Nurun Inc. oversaw Evian, MedPoint and L’Oreal Paris USA online marketing initiatives. Before Nurun, he spent five years with WorldNow, enabling local TV stations across the US to publish their content (stories, video, weather, etc.) online through their CMS. Focusing on digital, Yahav currently overseeing all the digital production, strategy/IA and technical staff at JWT. He works across all agency disciplines to ensure that JWT is managing and delivering all digital programs at the highest quality for our clients. As the Director of Digital Production is constantly researching new and innovative technologies to present back to JWT’s clients and its internal teams. Yahav moved to the US in 1995 from Israel and got his BS in computer information systems from NYU. He lives in Scarsdale NY with his wife and four kids. Favorite quote: “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
Joey Faust, a consultant with National TeleConsultants, Inc., advises clients on process and technology analysis, software development with a focus on file-based technologies and software systems design. He is a specialist in Web Services and related technology as well as Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). He is the co-author of the 2008 book “The Service-Oriented Media Enterprise: SOA, BPM, and Web Services in Professional Media Systems” from Focal Press. Mr. Faust has helped to build and implement file-based environments at TMZ on TV, the SPEED network, and a number of other clients. He has also assisted clients with business process modeling and technical assessment and analysis of production systems. National TeleConsultants, Inc. advises the world’s leading media companies who produce, aggregate, manage and distribute media content worldwide, providing technology and operations consulting, technical system design, project management and systems integration services. Founded in 1981, with offices in Los Angeles and New York, NTC is internationally recognized as a thought leader in the constantly changing media technology environment.
f Aspera’s core technology and responsible for overseeing the company’s direction. With breakthrough technology solving the fundamental problems of network data delivery, Aspera has quickly become the market leader for high-performance, global file transfer in media and entertainment, and is extensively deployed throughout a variety of industries, as well as government and defense markets, worldwide. Before founding Aspera in 2004, Michelle was a software engineer in several research and start-up companies including the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. She is a frequent speaker on how new data transfer technologies are revolutionizing content production, transformation and distribution workflows. A Fulbright Scholar, Ms. Munson holds B.S. degrees in electrical engineering and physics from Kansas State University, as well as a master’s in computer science from Cambridge University. She was the 2006 KSU College of Engineering Alumni Fellow (the youngest recipient ever), and has received national achievement awards from Glamour Magazine and USA Today.
In this digital age, it is hard not to argue the the time and place for the paper card is destined to come to an end. I am in fact kind of shocked that given most people carry some form of cell phone and or smart phone/PDA that we would still be passing paper cards back and forth instead of exchanging our data.
en that is capable of exchanging one of a few different virtual ID cards with other Poken tokens. Once the data is exchange the Poken can then be inserted into a USB port on a computer and the gathered data is uploaded to the Poken portal which is not another social network since we already have enough of those. What the sight does is let you instantly bridge the gap between the people you have met and the social sights you do utilize.
As much as I love the idea of being able to exchange data the to cute nature of the Poken might be a detraction for business types. This is easily fixed by offering a plain poken cover and in fact since I am sure the cover is the cheapest part of the Poken one need not wait for this since replacing the cover later would be simple and cheap.
So what is a digital though leader to do at this point. Simply put lead the way. So putting my money where my mouth is I have purchased a dozen of thePoken and hope to make them a featured item available to my ExecTec Networking group. ExecTec is a perfect place for the Poken since different members are to be found at each of our weekly dinners in Westwood and often members are meeting other members for the first time and always exchanging business cards and social meta data.
By making Poken a staple of the ExecTec culture perhaps I will be able to overcome the first issue which is having some place to readily overcome the lack of Poken adoption caused by a lack of other Pokens.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=ce8272ee-80da-449d-8833-00d54f664647)
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I like many people out there watched with envy as the ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=cb085ff8-1f66-4241-b858-1035100e38cd)
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