Is Privacy an Over-Rated Legacy of the Past?

The concept of privacy is a tricky one, to say the least.  Most people, when asked for a quick response would likely tell you that privacy is very important to them and that they are concerned about who has access to what they consider “private” data about them.

However, these very same people will create Facebook accounts, wander the web without using any sort of anonymous IP cloaking, send emails without encryption and speak loudly on their cell phones at crowded restaurants.  Many people are surprised to learn that things like your home address, phone number, email and endless other data is already freely (or at least) easily accessible to anyone handy with a few search engines and a database or two.

As we willingly share more and more information about our day-to-day lives via Twitter or Facebook status updates one has to wonder if we might not be better served giving up on this false sense of privacy and just open the floodgates.

As Matt Asay at CNet says:

Think about it. My in-box already knows where I’m traveling, what I buy, etc. because my receipts go there. If someone were to merge this data with my phone records (easily had for the price of my AT&T login credentials), my e-mail log, and my Twitter, IM, and social network data, they’d know exactly who I know and where I’m likely to bump into them…I’d love to automatically be told that my good friend Mike is in London at the same time as I am, and have a service suggest a reservation at a favorite restaurant (which it would know through my past OpenTable reservations). I’d “pay” for that by giving up a lot of data.        LINK

At first glance, this sounds crazy to a lot of people but the question is whether it is more valuable to you to keep your travel plans secret or to make them widely available as a potential way to add value to your travel.  We are already targeted by advertisers for our social behavior and choices made both online and offline, so it’s not especially new, at least in concept, that our personal data could and should be used in this manner.

The larger question is whether or not the whole concept of “privacy” is really just a social concept that is undergoing a major shift.  I am sure that the views on privacy from a sixty-year-old are radically different from those of a twelve-year-old.

AP to Place “DRM” on the News

In what I am betting is one of the AP’s final death throes, the organization has come up with a far-ranging plan that they claim will stop the rampant theft and plagiarism of their content and will finally force us freeloaders to make micropayments to read the news.

PaidContent parsed their FAQ:

—The registry will use a microformat platform AP developed; it was endorsed by the London-based Media Standards Trust earlier this month.

—The “microformat” puts content in content in a “wrapper” that includes a digital permissions framework “that lets publishers specify how their content is to be used online and which also supplies the critical information needed to track and monitor its usage.”

—The registry will provide metrics on content consumption, payment services and enforcement support.

—AP says the registry could support its previous idea of building search pages as “authoritative sources” by requiring links “to search optimized news pages that guide users to timely, authoritative coverage. AP continues to research the concept.”

Is it just me or does this sound an awful lot like the awful DRM that plagued the music business until only extremely recently.  While the music labels have all but completely abandoned DRM, realizing it did nothing to curb policy and a lot to piss off customers, it looks like the AP is going to give the same failed effort a spin.

It’s sad to see how little the various major content industries have been able to learn  from each others’ mounting failures.

NBC Takes Wimbledon Online for Free

First, NBC did a great job providing complete online coverage of the final round of the US Open on Monday and now comes word that NBC will be streaming their coverage of Wimbledon for free:

On Monday, it said that next month’s women’s and men’s finals at Wimbledon will be streamed live on NBCSports.com. The network brought “Sunday Night Football” to the Web last year, a ground-breaker for the NFL.

In addition to the two finals, NBC said all of its Wimbledon coverage, starting this weekend, will be available on its site, as well as a separate locale under the aegis of the tournament. The network said online viewers will see different camera angles than what’s on TV for the semifinals and finals.     LINK

As I mentioned in my US Open post, I think these sorts of decisions are a clear sign that the networks are not going to sit back and let cable companies dictate how their content can be consumed.  Realizing that they are losing out to piracy entirely due to their failure to provide a valid alternative, NBC is doing the right thing bringing Wimbledon online for free.

We will have to see what their actual coverage looks like, though it sounds that with the exception of the finals, the stream will be the same as the one being broadcast on TV.  We will also have to see what happens with commercial breaks.  During monday’s golf coverage, the online stream did not include the televised ads but instead put up a placard saying, in effect, “be right back.”

It is not clear what sort of advertising will be embedded with the online coverage.  It would be interesting to know if NBC is sharing any of it’s ad revenue generated online with their cable carriers.

Wimbledon is an especially exciting offer for online viewing since, for US viewers, much of the best coverage occurs during normal business hours when access to TV can be impossible.

The Notificator Beat Twitter by Over 70 Years

BoingBoing points out a great story from the archives of Modern Mechanix magazine, a description of a device known as the Notificator:

The user walks up on a small platform in front of the machine, writes a brief message on a continuous strip of paper and drops a coin in the slot. The inscription moves up behind a glass panel where it remains in public view for at least two hours so that the person for whom it is intended may have sufficient time to observe the note at the appointed place. The machine is similar in appearance to a candy-vending device.   LINK

It seems one of these devices was actual put into service in London in 1935 and according to a lengthier description of the device, it looks like it was in service until sometime in 1938.

Sadly, it looks like none of the original paper rolls survived.  That would have been a priceless archive of information about the daily lives of Londoners in the 1930’s.  Actually, it would probably look a lot like my Twitter stream, and thus prove worthless from an historial perspective.

If nothing else, the existence of the Notificator, which is really just a fancy bulletin board, proves that humans have always had the desire to broadcast even their simplest needs into the public ether.

UK Makes Pointless Show of Force Against DVD Piracy

TorrentFreak has word on a big plan to rid London of a horrible scourge:

“Touted as the biggest ever anti-piracy collaboration, the MPA and several major anti-piracy groups have announced that by the time the 2012 Olympics begin, they will have made London “a fake-free zone”. This impossible mission to stamp out DVD piracy was launched by Intellectual Property Minister, David Lammy.”

Is it just me, or does this sound like an enormous waste of time and resources? Isn’t there real crime in London?  How about making the city murder-free by 2012? Or how about a “felony-free zone?”

It upsets me to see how much of our tax money (both here in the US and around the world) is wasted on “stamping out DVD piracy” – not only is it completely ineffective but any small benefit achieved is only enjoyed by the major movie studios who will continue to use it all as an excuse to raise ticket prices.

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Live From Vermont, It’s Wimbledon!

For the past week-and-half or so I have been avidly following the play at Wimbledon.  Thanks to DVR I am able to come home each night and watch all the day’s matches, speeding through the blowouts and skipping the inane rain-delay commentary.  It’s great.

The thing is, yesterday I left NYC and my DVR and headed up to visit some good friends up in Vermont.  They run the fantastic On The Rise Bakery and Cafe in Richmond (stop in if you’re in the neighborhood!).  It’s wonderful up here.  Green and peaceful.

Adding to the serenity, my bakery friends, while very up-to-date in all areas, do not have cable TV, let alone a DVR.  Since I am going to be up here through the weekend it looked like I was going to have to miss the last two rounds of the tournament I’d been following so closely.

But wait, you say, didn’t you read somewhere that you could watch the tournament online?  Yup, you did.  The thing is, the legal feed provided by Wimbledon costs something like $25 and only runs on a Windows machine.

So, here I am in blissful Vermont.  Everything is perfect, but it would be amazing if I could just catch a glimpse of the lady’s semifinals.  But I have a Mac and don’t really want to spend $25 to indulge my craving.  Instead, I type “watch wimbledon online” into google and in less than a minute I am watching a slightly choppy and far from hi-res stream of Venus Williams putting away poor, sad Dementiava in a second set tie-breaker.  For free.  On my Mac.  Technically, I was probably breaking the law, or at very least abetting someone else in breaking the law, but who have I harmed?

What’s my point?  Well, first, I love the internet for allowing me to watch the what I wanted, when I wanted, where I wanted.  Was it a perfect experience?  Nope.  Would I have been willing to pay a small fee for a better version.  You bet.  $25 is a bit steep, though…

Why are the big media providers not serving me with all of these things when some hacker/pirates in god-knows-where are able to do it no problem?  Somehow, the whole mess of copyright and DRM and all that crap has led to a completely crippled service.

No wonder the pirates are winning.  Everyone is being made into a pirate just to get what they want in a reasonable fashion.

Just to watch a tennis match I had to break the law.  Is the problem me or the law?