Solving Privacy On the Web: Be Smart, Not Scared

When it comes to the amount of data I share about myself and my family on the Web, there's little question that I am at the odd end of the bell curve. It's not a secret what my family structure looks like. My kids' real names are out there to be discovered, as is my birthday, hometown, religion, political preference and much more. You can see real photos of me and my family if you search hard enough, and videos too.

I use Foursquare to share location data. I use Blippy to share purchase history, and I even use OneTrueFan to make my Web visits public. This hasn't been done with a reckless approach to privacy where I have thrown caution to the wind, but instead, has been more calculated. I believe the major trends on the Web encourage sharing, and if I can be the one sharing and not reacting, I am ahead of the game.

See CNN: The Internet and the 'End of Privacy' for their insight into my sharing behavior.

Some would look at what I choose to share and could suggest I feel that privacy is "dead". I don't believe this at all. What I do believe, however, is that intelligent sharing and knowledge of where personal data is distributed can bring value. Rather than take a more conservative approach, locking down what in other generations would be secret, I've opted to own what is shared, and to operate my life as if what I was not sharing explicitly would not be a disaster if it eventually were to be surfaced.

One needs to look no further than Facebook, the world's dominant social network, to see how the company's approach to privacy has changed in the last few years. Once a stalwart site prized for how it protected your content from prying eyes, more content has become public in practically each update. While some have suggested the best solution is to lock down one's profile, I have instead assumed the content will eventually become public and discoverable, shared to advertisers. This was one reason I downloaded an archive and self-hosted it, making the full copy available myself. (See: http://www.louisgray.com/facebook/)

But even with my level of publicness comes limits. I don't think it makes sense to chronicle the minutiae of my day through status updates. I don't muddy my main broadcast channels with location details, shopping updates or entertainment. I don't air embarrassing scenes with my wife or my kids. I don't post content of them that would be unflattering. And I try not to bore people with inane blather.

For me, the major reason I don't share some things is not because I am frightened my content will be used against me. After all, it took a simple e-mail account hack to get me fighting back on that front earlier this summer, and it wasn't tracked to my use of any of these sites. The major reason I don't overshare is because I believe it wouldn't add value and it would be boring to all who saw it.

In a conversation I recently had with a reporter from CNN.com, he asked if there were parts of my life I would be reticent to share if my transparency were further peeled back. The answer was essentially no. The trick is to live your life in a way that if your employer or future spouse were checking in on you, you would have nothing to fear. This doesn't mean you can't have a good time, but you should assume a consequence if your actions were to become public. Manage yourself well and what's discovered shouldn't turn an eye.

We live in a world with many imperfect people, and some really bad ones. That's no question. But I don't think being afraid to share and reducing the amount of personally identifiable information is the right approach. It makes more sense to assume the world is full of great people, cultivate the ones where this is known, and to be smart about what you share, and where you do. Watch the big networks to see if you think they are taking liberties with your data and prepare for the eventuality if they do.

Facebook's Friend Finder: The Largest People Database?

While most of the press around Facebook's recent enhancements centered on the emergence of new profiles, the world's default social network has recently rolled out a number of other changes that make the site further revealing in terms of what you share, and more interesting, let you tap into the nearly 600 million people on the site to find new connections. The new friend finder, which encourages you to find new people in your hometown, school, employer or more, even lets you tap one degree away and find friends of friends. The result is a rich people discovery database that makes friending more likely thanks to shared connections.

What has made Facebook compelling ahead of practically every other social network out there in the last decade is the focus on real personal identities, connections to a shared history and experience. As the network starts to surface more relevant and popular content in the news feed and gets to know what you like in a more personal way, this will no doubt continue. Thus it was no surprise to see Facebook CTO Bret Taylor (formerly FriendFeed's CEO) say "Facebook is completely personalized. Every time you visit, you get a unique personal experience." in a recent interview with Forbes.

Facebook Says to Find Friends from Your Life

Key to making the site more personal is getting more and more information about you into the network, which makes their guess about what interests you and what you might find as interesting advertising more accurate. One aspect to getting to know you better and keeping you immersed in the site is more connections, both in quality and quantity.

The new Facebook "Find Friends" Browser suggests you should "Find friends from different parts of your life", prompting you not only to follow the recommended folks they serve up with rich profile photos and mutual friend counts, but also to search based on Hometown, Current City, High School, College, Employer, and most interestingly to me, to Mutual Friends. So you could essentially walk down a mutual friend's list of connections. The more mutual friends the suggestion would have, the more likely they are to be a friend of yours, or so it would seem.

Facebook Recommended Friends Due to Mutual Connections

While this is valuable, it also hints this is an incredible tip of the iceberg. You could already select multiple attributes, for example finding "Mutual friends of Jesse Stay" and selecting "Sunnyvale, CA". I found two folks in that search, and 24 who named their hometown as San Francisco, and were "Mutual friends of Rick Klau". Extend this to what you like, and that's a clear next step. Friends of yours in Sunnyvale who like The Smiths? Go. Friends of yours in Denver who like Twitter? Go.

There's no real equivalent of this massive database on the Web. There are good friend recommendation services from Twitter and Google Buzz, of course, but Facebook has all the names, and the metadata of each individual connection means this little improvement could go a long way. As Facebook surfaces more and more public information from what was once previously private, imagine the world's personal database searchable. There's no longer the six degrees of Kevin Bacon at work here. Just one starting point. Browse your friends here: http://www.facebook.com/find-friends/browser/

Not On Google's Chrome Netbook List? There's Always eBay.

Even for Google, this week was a big one in terms of announcements. In the first two days, the company unveiled its new Nexus S smartphone, running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), powered by Samsung, and also introduced the new Chrome OS, running on custom Google hardware, along with the much awaited Chrome Web app store.

Interestingly, the distribution of the CR-48 netbooks looks to be limited to about 60,000 units to the bleeding edge early adopters who don't mind things being a little wonky. Unsurprisingly, one of the devices is already on eBay, sporting a price tag of nearly $600.

One more exclamation point, and I'll bid $1,000.

You can't log into an RSS reader or view your Tweet stream without bumping into a tech blogger or influencer who was in Google's good graces and managed to get early access to the first deployment of Google's Web-centric OS with the Chrome Web browser at its core. Shortly after the announcement, many more said they had received e-mail notification they would be soon getting one, and other fans flooded the company's pilot program to fill out a form claiming why they would be worthy to act as a willing beta tester for the Mountain View giant.

The CR-48 Lacks Stickers and Branding. It's Stealthy.

Given the demand and intrigue in the CR-48, it's no surprise those on the outside looking in would want to find a surefire way to try out the netbook, without crossing their fingers and waiting for a blessing from Google proper. On the flip side, it is a little surprising that at least one of those who somehow qualified as a trusted tester is instead trying out the gray market to make a buck.

A few hours into the five day auction, the first two bids have pushed the price up to $560, with $50 shipping in the US. This compares to the price for a new 14-inch Dell Inspiron with 4 GB RAM, a 500 GB Hard Drive, and a 2.4 GHz Intel chip, running Windows 7 Home, on Amazon, retailing for just about $600. There's obviously a premium for getting something first, even if you are getting a netbook with no local storage and an unproven OS.

If you aren't worried about the price and just want to get yourself a new CR-48, take out your credit card and head to eBay. If you think it's a scam, maybe you'll be comforted by the seller's 88 previous sales, and 100% feedback rating. And no, I'm not bidding. I can wait.

Android Handset Dreams: Devour, Defy, Be a Magic Legend

Even if you subscribe to the theory that Apple's operating system and hardware is more sexy than its competitive counterparts, the names for its products in the last decade have become pedantically pedestrian. For the most part, one simply puts the letter i in front of a device. The series of i-Products, from iMac to iBook, iBooks, iPad, iPhone, iPod and iLife has become something of an ongoing joke. Meanwhile, the MacBook portable line was unified under one name, with the word "Power" disappearing from Powerbooks and PowerMacs, dubbed Mac Pros.

In contrast, in what looks to be a fight for attention among an array of devices and carriers, entries for the Android platform are increasingly fanciful, with names that attempt to provide passion and grandeur to the fast-growing mobile operating system.

The first, and most well known, name associated with the Android series is Motorola's Droid. Decidedly masculine, its commercials summoned mechanical assembly line like behavior with harsh lights and noise. Follow-on models to the first Droid didn't just stop with the Droid X and Droid 2, already confusing, but were called "Incredible". It's kind of like McDonald's branding move with the "Big N' Tasty" burger, which implied the rest of its meats were say... less big and less tasty. So what of the Incredible? Would that make the rest of Motorola's line mediocre, or simply, meh? "The Motorola Droid Meh. You kinda want it."

Competitive Android models haven't stopped at Incredible. HTC's models are the stuff of romance novels. The Dream. The Desire. The Hero. The Legend. Magic. Wildfire. I personally use the Epic. And the experience with this phone? I'd say it's very good, but I don't know if Epic is the right word.

Dell, not comfortable with keeping to Fabio covers and steamy paperbacks, instead looked to the sky for inspiration. Their first tablet was called the Streak, and it was accompanied by Android models called Thunder, Smoke and Flash. No doubt Monsoon, Tornado, Hurricane and Tempest are next.

Samsung, not to be left out, started with dramatic tones, Behold and Moment, as in, "Behold! This is the Moment you have been waiting for!" Their Galaxy S series seemed to one-up Dell's look to the sky, and Galaxy became the name for their tablet as well.

One has to wonder if the big saber-rattling when it comes to names is something of overcompensation and shouting to be noticed. Should one extend from Incredible, would Marvelous follow? Fantastic? Awesome? Perfection? Or if you're HTC, do you step deeper into the romance novels and deliver the Lust, Muscle, or Climax?

Lest you think these are simply exceptions to the rule, from the largest manufacturers, look no further than the CSL Spice to see how the manufacturer is trying to heat things up. HTC oddly also had the Tattoo, which probably tries to appeal to your bad boy side. The ZTE Blade continues the rebel appeal. HTC plans the Scorpion, whose sting carries a 4.3" screen a 1.5 GHz CPU and an 8 megapixel camera.

These and many more Android device names can be tracked on Wikipedia, which has a fairly exhaustive list of released and future Android models. It all seems silly to me. Great marketers can find a name that works and stick with it through the line of products, whether it's as pedestrian as the Camry or as nondescript as BMW's 3 and 5-series. IBM had its line of ThinkPads, Nike had its Air. But none of these tried to so clearly titillate its customers.

The oneupmanship in the Android naming sex factor surely has to have an end, and like that topic, one hopes they don't peak too soon, before the real good stuff develops. If sex sells, and Android phones are certainly selling, correlation could be driving causation. I didn't buy my Android because I thought it would make me a hunk. That's beyond saving. I upgraded because I thought it would be useful and productive. So bring on the boring naming conventions. We deserve to be talked to like adults.