14.12.2009 von admin.

After neglecting my blog for a while I thought it to be interesting to report on some very positive developments in the social web research and development community. According to discussions on the W3C Social Web, for example, but also due to some major research projects this year, privacy seemed to have climbed the ranks in addressing hurdles for the further development of the Web - and specifically for advancing social network applications. When attending some web conferences in 2007 and 2008, privacy in social network applications was still thought to be somewhat of an oxymoron. The year 2009 seemed to have put privacy on the top of the agenda for social web development folks. Good move!

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29.7.2008 von admin.

This video has nothing to do with social network apps or with my PhD but I got a good laugh out of it and I thought to share with whoever is interested.

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11.6.2008 von admin.

The upcoming OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet from June 17-18, 2008 in Seoul/Korea will discuss how policies for the Internet economy can shape creativity, confidence and convergence in the digital world. The OECD Secretary General, Mr. Angel Gurría, put out a call for ideas and contributions via YouTube that I find quite interesting.

Watch for yourself:

My contribution would be the following:

1) Creativity: Invest in the Internet for Education, Education, Education. Innovation, economic growth, and social development can all only occur with higher levels of education - whereever you are in the world. As such, there should be more keynote speakers that represent educational initiatives. I am glad to see APC being represented but other than that the so-called stakeholders all have a technology background (more to that on the convergence topic).

2) Confidence: Trust in the Internet technology is key for its continued ability to shape our future. One of the challenges I am trying to help with is the enhancement of information privacy for Internet users. In my role as project editor of the new privacy standards at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and with my dissertation work on “Information Privacy in Social Network Applications” I am trying to contribute my fair share. Yet, application providers and technology firms need to absorb the idea that Internet users should get control over their own information - please!

3) Convergence: Technologies and platforms that converge on the Internet represent exciting new forms of communication. Creativity is key to develop these ideas and technologies further but we do need a broader participation for international technology standardization in this space - and that not by just a few. All stakeholders need to act together to effectively adapt this new environment of converging platforms.

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29.1.2008 von admin.

DataPortability - Connect, Control, Share, Remix from Smashcut Media on Vimeo.

An interesting and well-done video on the data portability project done by Michael Pick from Smashcut Media. The project spells out as one of its principles the protection of user rights and privacy. Yet, assigning access rights to certain pieces of personal data will only cover the data protection aspect of privacy but it will not cover the required accountability and self-control over personal data in various contexts. It should be interesting to see how the project work evolves in this respect. Certainly, more work is necessary on enhancing social network users’ privacy especially when their data increasingly gets transferred and exported to other applications.

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28.1.2008 von admin.

It might of interest to some folks working on information privacy in social network applications that the W3C has started an interest group called PLING (Policy Languages Interest Group). It is an open forum to discuss use cases, languages, and frameworks around information governance policies and serves as a global platform to enable different initiatives to share and exchange ideas about policy interoperability. Part of my PhD work is setting requirements and mechanisms to talk “privacy” to computers. Not an easy task. As we know, for computers the Web is flat. Privacy, however, has many dimensions and depends on various contexts. Therefore, I thought it might be a good idea to join PLING and see how I can contribute with some use cases related to privacy in social network applications. If you are interested in joining the group, please go to http://www.w3.org/Policy/pling/ and join the public mailing list.

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22.12.2007 von admin.

Recommended lessons to privacy-respecting design of social software by Kosmar.

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6.11.2007 von admin.

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6.11.2007 von admin.

David Recordon from SixApart has just given a great talk at the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin. Explaining the movement from centralized social networks to a more decentralized world, he mentioned that “enbaling privacy will get harder” but it would still be possible. Glad to hear that there is hope! However, discussions around privacy in social networks at the moment address only the service of providing the user with view settings, meaning the user determines who can view which type of personal data. That is only part of the story. Yes, it gives some control to the user to obvious data he puts on his site but in lots of cases, the user may get some false sense of privacy. Other processes need to be addressed such as making sure the user understands who is using his data (third parties), what the data would be used for (data mining), and where the data is transferred to (cross-border transfers). At the same time, he should be able to specify the purpose his personal data is used for. And this not only about his photos and Email address on the social networking site, it is about all the data the user provides in the context of the service. Visit my presentation on Thursday, November 8 at 09:00 am at the Web 2.0 Expo. I will elaborate on this subject.

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