Privacy in a Web 2.0 World An Oxymoron?

I recently did a google search on my name. I don’t make it a habit to ego search myself, but I wanted to see what was out there. Low and behold, there was a broad range of results, all accurately pointing to some either current or vestigial element of my cyber profile. This got me thinking how vulnerable I have become to having an over exposed personae on the net.

I have been quite an active content contributor for over a decade. I have had several web sites, comment postings and partook in a couple product reviews and marketing efforts for colleagues of mine. But the amount of content that I have produced on the net in the last three or four years is exponentially more than the previous seven or so. The main difference is the tempting availability of Web 2.0 applications and social networking platforms out there. Aside from the five blogs I am involved in, I have a LinkedIn profile, plus Facebook, Twitter, Socialtoo, Flickr, MySpace and even an BlogTalkRadio account. Twitter and Facebook are my most used tools and the privacy choices do not default to the most conservative settings. So, my random rants, profane frustrations and even very personal messages are all indexed by search engines and show up in my ego results.

While internet privacy is an oxymoron and one that I am not concerned with, I still am not comfortable with how exposed I truly am on the internet. I do not think ceasing to exist on the net is an option now–I need to wait for the storage of my ethereal messages get de-prioritized on the massive SANs and NASs that contain all our information and finally purged from the matrix.

So, the levels of exposure have dramatically increased since the mass adoption of social networking sites. Facebook is the big dog now and Twitter is ubiquitous, but people seem to toss concern about over-exposure to the wind and let it all out. But you must consider the cost of this over-exposure. There are actual cases of people being fired over photos that show up on Myspace and I am certain many people fall out of consideration for new jobs because of what prospective employers learn about them on Facebook. Even very high profile politicos opt to really expose themselves (textually) on Twitter–which will for sure come back to bite them later.

There has to be a better way. Social Networking is becoming a key component to our culture and I wouldn’t change that. But, social networking sites need to offer clear, up-front information on how users can protect the information they choose to keep to themselves or close friends. Putting the user in clear control of privacy choices will only improve the state of the net and result in less victimization of personal data.

Even non-social networking applications lean to over exposure. Imagine Google in the wrong hands. 100% of the tools they give away capture your personal data and Google uses it in forwarding their advertising agenda. “Don’t be evil” can easily be forgotten in the face of huge sums of money.

Still, I feel a bit overexposed. Search my name and you get an unrepresentative perspective of who I am or at least who I want you to think I am….

While Sprawl3 does not see itself as a social network, we will have that element in our application. We plan to be forthcoming on privacy education and give our users real options in setting up the Web 2.0 tools we will soon be offering.

~DK