You may have noticed that there are no Facebook "like" buttons or Google tracking on this site.
There's no Gmail, Google docs, Flash nor Twitter. In fact everything on this site is hosted and run using free, open-source software (Debian Linux, Apache2, Postfix, PHP5, StatusNet and Habari to be exact).
Why does this matter? While one could peddle out the (very valid) arguments of the Free Software Foundation, well summarised in Richard Stallman's Free Software, Free Society.
I think the issue of Open Data is somewhat separate if not necessarily orthogonal to the Free Software movement.
That's why I was so happy to find Chapter 19 in the above reference "Science Must Push Copyright Aside".
Stallman makes the point (amongst others) that copyright's original purpose was "to promote the Progress of Science", if it has failed to do so, then it's purpose needs to be reconsidered.
So what is Open Data and how does it relate to privacy?
Open Data is the idea that data (and in particular scientific data) should be available without cost or restriction on use to anyone choosing to use that data. I believe it is essential that scientific data adhere to the Open Data principle in order to prevent fraud, encourage public trust in the scientific method and to allow discoveries by aggregating data sets (a subject for an upcoming peer reviewed article).
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US thought that Open Data (or their variant Open Access) was important enough to enshrine in their processes for all publicly funded research, unfortunately even this is now under threat by a new bill in US Congress, which is being put forward with significant monetary support from... guess who; major scientific publishing houses. Let's hope that some logic prevails and that the shift of public monies into private purses gets halted with rejection of the bill.
But I thought Facebook was all about being open with data?
While Zuckeberg says that People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people
, this is exactly the opposite of the data ownership clauses required of its users.
Its terms of use say:
you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post
Google has similar terms, meaning that when you post comments, images, email messages or use docs you are effectively giving up rights to your data and allowing these organisations to use what is now their data for profit. I don't know about you but if I'm to give up such rights I feel I should be paid in return. So let's dispel the myth that Facebook and Google are "free" services, they are, in fact, "fee by data" services.
Your Data is Valuable
Therefore it is vital to exercise control over how it is used and distributed and if it is of use to others to make it available for reuse. These rights can now be specified in a very flexible way using copyleft/creative commons. This site allows you to quickly generate a licence for your work. Licensing your data in this way is important because it allows the legal obligation to retain openness of the data to pass to the next user while also doing nice things for your ego (for instance requiring attribution).
How about Social Networking?
The web of information being put together by social networking sites presents some troubling issues regarding social control. the right to anonymity and the sale of personal information. This article describes quite a few of these issues as well as how they can be countered by taking back the means of information propagation. Services like social networking need not be centralised and exploitative.
This site will continue to showcase community-led solutions to information hegemony, in the meantime, May your Data be Open Data!
Dealing with Privacy Intrusion
Internet tracking is the main way by which Google aggregates data about your activities, contacts, preferences and social milieu. The best way to deal with this is firstly to not use their services, try DuckDuckGo for an excellent alternative search engine. For email, there are various email providers that do not share your data, Greenant.net is my favourite as it has server-side spam filtering.
Also, I recommend using Firefox and browser plugins to prevent tracking (they also speed up web access!).