Gossip – erosion of privacy
March 14, 2008 5:05 pm PrivacyPerhaps it should be called e-rosion
At the moment I’m more likely to trust a corporation with my data, than any Government agency Lost Data Disks (other breaches) in fact I have; Amazon. They have my login details, home and work addresses, they know what products I have bought, others I own, what I’m interested and not interested in. Amazon already make recommendations and I don’t mind this, it’s automated and well with a bit of coaxing isn’t too bad, even if sometimes it appears to have an excellent memory but be slightly dumb – ’3 years ago you bought a book on knitting do you want another one…’. But there is more Amazon could find out from my buying patterns, are there any particular religious festivals when my purchasing increases, do I buy a lot of self help books, how many addresses to I get books sent to, how often does that change. These are all bits of information which when agregated could provide clues to my personality.
Why as a privacy advocate don’t I mind? Because it’s their competitive advantage to keep that information to themselves, and I trust them, as soon as I loose trust I will go elsewhere. It’s like the village shops I know the shopkeepers they know what I like to buy, it’s not a problem, it can be useful. But if they were to gossip that would be a breach of trust which would ultimately lead to me going elsewhere. Unfortunately there is much more data in the amazon database than my village shopkeeper could remember accurately which makes it valuable to others.
This ‘Gossip’ the little bits of information which can be glued together into a mosaic of a person can be damaging, the pieces don’t fit properly, the information isn’t always correct, the loudest or fastest voice is the one that gets heard, even if it might not be true. As happened at SXSW, the twitters got the message they wanted out fastest, everyone else seems to have commented based on those reports.
Gossip is around us everywhere, blogs are gossip! They give you information about the writer even if they are writing about something else, what they do what they are interested in, and we choose to do it. Its just life, a balancing act of being an introverted security maniac and an open book.
I’ll probably look at Gossip and E-rosion again, looking at social networking and it’s impact too.