edjhayes

They still don't get it, part 2174

2010-05-08T08:41:00.001Z

I live in the costituency of Hendon. In the general election on 6 May it was a key Labour/Tory marginal, with Labour's incumbent, Andrew Dismore, trying to hold off the charge of Matthew Offord. He failed (after a recount) by 106 votes.

The fact of his defeat was hardly a surprise, given the general Tory gains. His response to it was another matter. Within hours he was talking about legal action to challenge the result. There may well be something in his claims of problems with postal votes and queues and other issues at polls (although he was hardly unique in suffering from those issues).

What was surprising was his claim that "I don't think there was anything me or my team could have done. If we had had more support in door knocking I think we could have won." That statement drips with the sort of misunderstanding by politicians that characterised the whole of the expenses scandal that beset the rotten Parliament.

The reason Dismore didn't get more Labour supporters knocking up the vote was because of their distate for the issues in which he became embroiled:

- the failure to declare an interest in 90 (ninety!) parliamentary questions he asked after returning from trips to Cyprus funded by the Republic of Cyprus Parliament;

- his view that despite representing an easily commutable seat 10 miles from Parliament (in North London) he needed to designate his flat there as his second home and claim £34,000 in second home allowances for it (whilst living in a flat in West London), before switching his main residence to Hendon; and

- his spurious attempts to justify both those positions (see linked articles), and the utter irony that he was actually in a position of authority with regard to MPs' standards at the time.

The fact people like me weren't actively supporting his campaign, the fact he didn't have more people knocking on doors, the fact he lost the seat, is due to the contempt people feel for the actions of him and his cronies through the expenses scandal, and their failure to hold their hands up to their responsibilities when found out.

I received a letter from Dismore, in response to a question about MPs' attempts to exempt themselves from the Freedom of Information Act to avoid expenses details being published, where he said:

"Personally, whilst I see this transparency as essential, I am not convinced that many people will be potentially interested in trawling through the records - certainly, to go through mine would be an extremely boring exercise, I think."

I received that on 5 February 2009, a couple of months before the Daily Telegraph broke the expenses story. Looking back, it seems likely Dismore was well aware that the public would find his expenses anything but 'boring'. Indeed, the public would probably take such an interest that he would find himself in trouble at the election.

I can't say I am pleased the Tories have 'won' the election. I can't say I am pleased progressive parties will now probably take a back seat. I can't say I have enjoyed the triumph of personality over substance of this election. But on a local, personal level, I am not sad that a man who played the system to extremes, tried to wriggle into a justification when found out, and then still didn't understand when defeated why traditional supporters hadn't lent him their support, got kicked out.

Freed Our Data?

2010-01-21T22:52:00.000Z

It's great news that the Government has launched data.gov.uk. The principle that data created by the state, often using tax revenue, should be freely available to citizens to re-use is sound. Some of the apps that today's launch suggested could be built off the data-sets now released are impressive.

But the 'crown jewels' - Ordnance Survey geographic data that is the subject of the Guardian's long-running Free Our Data campaign - remain locked down. There is a pressing question with permitting free re-use of that data though, because of it's inherent value. Where a data-set exists that commercial entities want to exploit for profit (rather than 'bedroom developers' want to exploit out of simple interest or value to a niche community) it seems odd to do away with the chance of taking advantage of that commercial interest.

The fact the data at data.gov.uk is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported licence raises the possibility of government going a step further and limiting the licensing of the data to non-commercial use.

Up until now the debate has been played out in largely binary terms - either data-sets should or should not be released. Surely there is a usual distinction to be drawn between non-commercial and commercial use which could inform the release of data-sets that government considers to be inherently more valuable than those already released at data.gov.uk.

Quiet...

2010-01-20T22:56:00.000Z

I haven't posted anything here for quite some time. Nearly a year in fact. Periodically (about once a year, I think) I resolve to start posting regularly. Then see really interesting stories, think about them, and tweet them. Which is why the Twitter feed to the right is probably more active than the post section of this blog. In fact, if you're reading this after the end of January 2010, I've probably lapsed again into blog silence.

I shouldn't. Legally, there's loads interesting going on this year. The FCC and European Commission will keep chugging away on net neutrality in a debate that's very important but completely unsexy (and therefore largely unnewsworthy, outside the specialist press); the general election will see scant regard for key regulatory issues for the TMT sector (I guess recession, crime, immigration, education, health, Afghanistan and a bit of class war are always going to win more votes than 'contained contestable elements' and the like); the Orange / T-Mobile merger is rumbling on; EU states should start implementing the Telecoms Reform Package; and BT are threatening to judicially review any BIS / Ofcom move to implement the Independent Spectrum Broker's plans. No doubt I will think about blogging about all of it, and then just tweet instead...

Thatcher, Golliwogs and the BBC

2009-02-05T08:16:00.006Z

How on earth has the BBC got itself embroiled in a racism battle over some green room comments made by a tedious nobody? The fact that the Carol Thatcher Golliwog row has erupted into a story getting significant time on the Today programme and filling column inches suggests a serious misjudgment. It has given the anti-BBC, anti-public service broadcasting lobby another stick to beat it with by turning innuendo and hearsay about a crap joke made by a middle-aged, Middle England non-entity into a racism scandal.

What Carol Thatcher said was misplaced, foolish, and showed a lack of understanding of the modern world (a Thatcher, who'd have thought it...?). Whether it was said with malice only she and those who heard it know. But just why the BBC had to turn what amounted to an internal disciplinary issue (it was a private comment not a Brand-esque public broadcast, after all) into a headline story, is unclear. Anyone at the Corporation with an ounce of sense must have been able to see that the story is the perfect tabloid storm: the Thatcher link, a C-List celebrity, a pantomime villain in Jo Brand (the presenter alleged to have made the complaint), and a whiff of 'political correctness gone mad' as all the "I'm not a racist but-ers" charge in to defend the comment. Why couldn't the BBC just take her off the One Show and, if pushed, announce it was for editorial reasons. Would Thatcher have then gone to the press to explain the reasons behind the BBC's move? Unlikely. That could only have embarrassed her.

Instead, the BBC is left trying to defend a mess of contradictions in its reaction.

If it believes Carol Thatcher is genuinely racist then it is inexplicable that it has taken her off the One Show but intimated that it will still employ her for other TV engagements (why give a racist a platform?).

If it doesn't believe what she said was racist then logically it must accept her defence that the comments were intended in (misguided) jest, in which case it looks like a massive over-reaction to take her off the One Show and publish the reason for doing so.

If it believes that a permanent expulsion from a show is a fitting measure for a crap off-air joke that it accepts is not racist, it is indefensible that Jonathan Ross is back on-screen 3 months after a wilfully offensive on-air joke. If it believes that insensitive, prejudicial words should never be used by its presenters, whatever their intended meaning, then why does it continue to employ Chris Moyles?

If it just wanted to create space for a new presenter to freshen up the dull-as-ditchwater One Show it could have managed Carol Thatcher out gradually without creating an unnecessary controversy.

What the response really smacks of is a BBC cowed by the Brand-Ross affair seeking desperately to prove that it is in-tune with public sensibilities at a time when its continued funding is under review through the Public Service Broadcasting Review and the Digital Britain report. If it concentrated on the quality of its programming and thought about the consistency of its messages and actions it might succeed in doing so. Instead, it looks petty, short-sighted, inconsistent, and absurd.

Guardian on BBC / C4

2009-01-23T09:37:00.004Z

Today's Guardian editorial on Ofcom's proposals for a public service broadcasting shake-up seems to understand the interconnection of issues in a way most of the other commentary has failed to. It addresses the challenge of online content, the question of the long-term need for plurality in PSB at all, and how the debate links to the roll-out of universal broadband.

Where the editorial fails is in omitting to define just what PSB is (the elephant in the room in the whole argument, whoever is talking about it). The consequence is that the conclusion ("But when everyone can watch what they want, when they want, will the BBC really need Channel 4 to keep it honest?") is practically reasonable, but misses the biggest point of principle here. The debate should not be about the ability of public service broadcasters to give people what they want, when they want: something greater than bottom-line populism should define their remit, and frame all the financial and policy questions in play.

London polling

2008-07-02T08:54:00.003Z

The Open Rights Group has just announced there is insufficient evidence to declare confidence in the London mayoral election. Two key issues are that London Elects (the body that organised the election) cannot publish a KPMG audit of software used in the count because of commercial confidentiality concerns, and that observers on election night had access to what amounted to meaningless data.

At a time when the UK is condemning rigged elections elsewhere in the world, that is concerning. If, in the rush to computerise elements of the election process, we lose visibility and certainty of outcome things are badly askew. The only reason to introduce technology in a simple vote count process must be to improve its efficiency. If the count is quicker but less accurate then there is obviously no efficiency gain. Better to delay the result but get it right than expedite and get it wrong.

Further, if we move to technical solutions then there must be agreement with those who provide them that those solutions must be visible. As the Open Rights Group report said:

"London Elects commissioned a partial source code audit from KPMG. However, due to reasons of commercial confidentiality, which appear to have been unforeseen, London Elects has been unable to publish that audit, as well as another audit undertaken by KPMG on the counting infrastructure... if the audit commissioned from KPMG is to be understood as a transparency measure, then it is unacceptable that the results are not available in full to the general public."

To commission a technical solution in the context of an election but not to assess the ramifications of that for the integrity of the process is a huge error.

Facebook's growing pains

2008-06-23T08:49:00.003Z

This is an interesting take on Facebook's ability to raise revenues on the back of international (rather than US) growth. The whole question of the monetization of social networks is hugely interesting, particularly in light of Eric Schmidt's admission that Google isn't really sure how to make YouTube pay.

The issue is one I've been looking at a lot recently, and I'm beginning to wonder if the second generation of social networks will fail for the same reasons as the first, such as Friends Reunited. Friends Reunited couldn't persuade people to pay, so recently took down its pay-wall, and suffered from a splurge of initial interest eventually trailing off. It now looks like Facebook et al, having avoided the pay model, can't generate sufficient advertising. What's the alternative...?

Crunch opportunities

2008-04-10T19:24:00.002Z

Credit crunch stories saturate the media. The lack of venture funding for web start-ups is well reported. There is, however, less coverage of the opportunities that an economic down-turn presents to web businesses.

An economic adages regularly trotted out in news stories is that taxi drivers often feel the first effects of recession, as punters become less free-and-easy in hailing black cabs, and more inclined to stick to public transport. Inevitably, taxi drivers and many other businesses must suffer when belt-tightening starts. But surely there are some businesses well-positioned to seize the opportunities frugal consumer attitudes present.

I started thinking on this when I read about Skydeck, a US start-up. It gives mobile phone users a mechanism to automatically analyse their bills. Skydeck, say that in the future they aim to: "introduce a range of products and services that will help consumers and small businesses to get maximum value out of their cell phones". The mechanism seems clear - combine a thorough statistical analysis of mobile use with a screen-scraper for operator tariffs, and you have a way of telling users which plans best suit them. Encourage those users to click through from your site to move to a new, cheaper operator, and collect the commission. It might not make millions, but it doesn't cost much more than the hosting and software development fees.

Commission-paying websites might also benefit from struggling markets. If you have a combination of e-commerce sites fighting for dwindling business and customers looking to cut costs, then services that introduce the two, like TopCashBack and Quidco, can profit. The same is true of the raft of sites that gained popularity and extensive media coverage in the lead up to the unfair bank charges case that reached the courts in early 2008. Moneysavingexpert is a good example of a site with a large following. Although its goal is to help consumers save money, there is an underlying business model reliant on users clicking-through to acquire the featured financial products that best fit their circumstances. A site like Moneysavingexpert already has a large active user community, and the more that community contributes the more it benefits, as the best and worst deals get exposed for others to enjoy. Equally, with consumer credit harder to come by, it goes without saying that social lending sites like Zopa have a chance to prosper.

If Moneysavingexpert and Zopa are seen as sophisticated social networks, it is perhaps easier to see where web 2.0 sites can make money. And that itself raises questions about the long-term viability of sites that offer individuals a way of interacting with each their peers, but nothing more.

Byron

2008-03-27T22:58:00.003Z

The Byron Review on child internet safety has, unsurprisingly, generated a huge amount of comment. Despite the volume of comment, it is not something that appears to have exercised particularly surprised or critical responses from the mainstream media. Rory Cellan-Jones's article at the BBC dot.life blog is a good example - it is analytical, understated, sensible.

That corresponds with the Byron Report itself. Instead of an "Internet Corrupts Our Children" Daily Mail-esque rant, the Report acknowledges the possible risks posed by the internet and computer games to children, but tempers that with an acceptance that the evidence is not conclusive. As importantly, it does not suggest root and branch reform of internet regulation is needed, alongside taskforces, extra-policing and the like. Instead, it emphasises the important role of parents in the whole child internet safety picture, and the fact that control and guidance is better exercised by parents with an understanding of the internet and computer games than those without.

Byron could easily have produced a 'moral panic' report, feeding on the media attention typically lavished on crimes with a possible computer game link (however tenuous), and suggesting draconian responses. Instead her report presents ideas that are surely more likely to have a chance of success - trying to share knowledge with people who have a genuine chance of influencing access to internet and computer game content, and helping them make informed decisions. From the presenter of the House of Tiny Tearaways, perhaps a strike for the anti-nanny state?

Confused Apology

2008-03-25T22:32:00.002Z

The Guardian reports that the BBC has apologised to viewers offended by a Good Friday episode of EastEnders that featured the attempted murder, by way of live burial, of a central character ('BBC says sorry to EastEnders viewers').

The apology confuses me. It is not an outright apology suggesting the BBC thinks it should not have shown the episode, but a qualified apology to those viewers who did not enjoy it.

The half-way house 'sorry' indicates a lack of courage on the part of the BBC, and deserves criticism. In commissioning the script for the episode and then filming and editing it, the BBC must have been alert to the violent nature of the scenes. Since the episode was a key part of the BBC's Easter output it must have got comfortable with the risk that some viewers would find the episode unpleasant, and decided to proceed with broadcast regardless (indeed, the heavy warnings surrounding the episode indicate that was the case). After Ofcom received 45,000 complaints from members of the public during the 2007 Celebrity Big Brother racism scandal, the BBC must have had in mind the readiness of the public to voice displeasure at close to the bone popular television output.

All of that makes it surprising that the BBC issued an apology about the EastEnders episode so quickly (even accepting that the apology was qualified). A strong public service broadcaster must have the courage of its convictions, and show readiness to stand up for programming it believes in. That is especially the case where the programming pushes boundaries. It must have cogent arguments to back up its decisions, and it must be prepared to stand up to complaints that follow (it received 167). It should not default into apologising whenever viewers complain.

If the BBC genuinely believed that the episode in question was an important piece of quasi-psychological commentary (its response to complaints said: "The burial is in no way glamorised or glorified, rather we see that when pushed to the edge, Tanya's behaviour becomes out of character, and indeed that it's Tanya herself who ultimately suffers because of her actions") it is amazing that it offered so rapidly a mealy-mouthed apology. The reality, more likely, is that the episode was simply about snatching Easter audience-share, and the BBC got caught out by the complaints. That says a lot about the BBC.

Conversation Elsewhere

2008-03-21T11:23:00.004Z

Sarah Perez has posted an interesting piece at ReadWriteWeb - 'The Conversation Has Left the Blogosphere'. It focuses on the difficulty the burgeoning number of content aggregation services creates: quite simply, is the quality of a conversation about a blog post diluted because it occurs at a plethora of aggregating sites (Digg, FriendFeed, Mixx, etc) rather than at the blog that kick-started the conversation?

Instinctively, I think the answer is: no, it isn't. Without the aggregating services the blogosphere is , for casual readers, an impenetrable sea of inanity - the YouTubed skateboard-riding cat of the written word. It is mainly through aggregating that a quality filter exists. Of course, that quality filter is skewed to the prejudices and preferences of those who spend most time using aggregating services (which perhaps explains the popularity of tech blogs when the googling world seems fixated on celebrity and song lyrics) but it is a lot more useful navigating with the aggregating services than without.

If there is a problem, it is probably more that the volume of aggregating services itself becomes overwhelming, and the solution to one problem creates another.

Media failing

2008-01-15T17:25:00.000Z

The UK media makes much of the risk posed by various communications to children: from the threat of mimicking violence seen in computer games, to adverts for obesity-inducing junk food, and magazines that cause girls to obsess over appearance.

There is rather less discussion about the propriety of newspapers in securing exclusive access to high-profile non-celebrity individuals such as the McCann family and, most recently, Kenny Richey (the Scottish man just released after 21 years on death row in the US).

Given the public interest in his case there was a predictable media scrum. Ultimately, the Mail on Sunday and Sunday People won, paying a reputed £40,000 for access. As the Guardian reported Richey's supporters feared that the last thing he needed after his ordeal was to be man-handled by a tabloid newspaper:

"Supporters of Richey have complained privately at the tight control over his return to the UK by the Mail on Sunday, which had staff at his side on the flight home, and by the family's media adviser, Max Clifford. Justice campaigners said they believed Richey was being badly advised and would face disastrous psychological problems unless he immediately received expert counselling."

Now, predictably, he is suffering. Reports say that he is struggling to re-adjust to life outside prison, and has considered suicide since his release. Of course, it is possible that even with the finest counselling he would have struggled. But in arguing that they are serving Richey's financial needs by paying for exclusive rights to his story, the Mail on Sunday and Sunday People use a self-serving justification (presumably they planned to recoup the fee through increased sales?), and ignore that their close involvement may be contributing to his downfall.

There has to be a question whether a self-regulating press is capable of making the right decisions where they must balance the financial incentives offered by a story the public is keen to hear, against the best interests of the story's subject.

Copyright progress

2008-01-11T09:18:00.000Z

News that the UK Intellectual Property Office is consulting on implementing parts of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property (2006) is welcome (if somewhat delayed).

A key part of the consultation is a proposal to change copyright law to develop a 'format shift' right for UK consumers. This would mean an end to the old absurdity that a user who purchases a CD is effectively committing copyright breach by "format-shifting" that CD to his own iPod, or PC.

The Consultation states:

"It is proposed to create a new exception that would allow consumers to make a copy of a work they legally own, so that they can make the work accessible in another format for playback on a device in their lawful possession. The exception would only apply to personal or private use. The owner would not be permitted to sell, loan or give away the copy or share it more widely (for example in a fi le sharing system or on the internet). Multiple copying would not be allowed."

The Consultation then asks for responses to a series of questions about what should constitute "personal and private use", whether the right should apply to all types of copyrighted material content or only some (e.g. music recordings but not films), whether there should be a limit on the number of permitted format shifts, and whether the right should apply retrospectively to content consumers already own.

The proposal is welcome because it seeks to recognise commercial and practical reality. Consumers expect that when they purchase a CD or a digital music file they are buying a right to use that CD or digital music file for their own personal and private satisfaction. Conversely, I cannot find any evidence of a rights owner ever seeking to claim copyright infringement against a consumer who has format-shifted (of course, there are plenty of cases of claims against consumers who have format-shifted and then peer-to-peer shared, which is a different matter). Changing the law to reflect a right to format-shift, then, removes an anomaly from the statute book, and allows a proper focus on where the real risk for content owners lies - illegal sharing rather than legitimate personal use.

Flawed dataportability

2008-01-10T12:01:00.000Z

Things are moving quickly. After the Scoble affair last week, Facebook was challenged to join the dataportability working group. It duly did. The more astute commentators picked up that the dataportability working group (and the concept of data portability, as currently conceived) pays little regard to European data privacy law. In essence, its take on the world is from a less privacy-focussed US perspective. That has kicked off further interesting discussion about the impact of the UK's Data Protection Act, and what rights individuals have over their own personal data and the personal data of others who have established Facebook 'friend' links with them.

The comments on the Techcrunch post (from which I've taken the links above) throw up a sea of relevant issues, including the lack of understanding of data protection rights among users of social networks, the prevalence of US perspectives in a lot of tech / privacy debates, and the difficulty of the law keeping track of technology developments.

For what it's worth, I disagree that the UK's Data Protection Act is unsuited to developments in technology. On the contrary, I think it (and the EU legislation from which it emerges) do a good job of establishing principles that are technology neutral. Rather than the situation being that the law fails to keep pace with the tech community and social networks, the case is more realistically that the tech community and social networks (and what they want to do with data) have failed to give due regard to the law which regulates them. There is nothing in the data protection principles (see below) set out in the 10 year old UK legislation that is not comprehensible and applicable in the context of social networks; it is rather that what is technologically possible (and for some desirable) is not necessarily permissible.

UK data protection principles

Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be processed unless... [legal stuff].
Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes.
Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed.
Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.
Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.
Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects under this Act.
Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.
Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.

John Naughton on Scoblegate

2008-01-06T16:25:00.000Z

John Naughton's 'Networker' column in the Observer is always worth reading. His article today (06.01.07, 'Why Facebook Wants To Corner The Market In Personal Info') picks up on this week's Scoble affair (see posts below).

Naughton's analysis of the issue of data ownership is accurate, at least from a UK legal perspective:

"... the personal information in his friends' profiles is not his property. In that context, the only data-item he owns is the database flag that indicates a 'friendship' link between him and another subscriber."

Naughton follows this up by touching on user acceptance of website terms and conditions and then considering the way social websites make personal data available online:

"I'm constantly astonished by the casual way people allow personal data to be visible to allcomers on web services. This is partly a consequence of naivety - especially among teenagers - but is largely a product of the 'default' settings that come with a new account."

It is his next statement which is crucial, though:

"We have enough experience of computing to know that most users accept the default settings, meaning those who control the defaults make all the running."

We have a reality where huge numbers of people are using sites like Facebook without reading the terms and conditions, and without adjusting privacy settings to protect their data.

The UK is suffering identity theft problems (the Home Office suggests upwards of 100,000 people are affected per year) at the same time as more people are using social networking sites more frequently. Since it is easier to regulate social networks than to change risky user habits (and users certainly have some responsibility) there must be a compelling argument for requiring such sites to set default options to the most secure privacy settings possible. If users subsequently decide they want to be more visible in their networks they can take the necessary steps.

Data portability

2008-01-04T18:09:00.000Z

I wrote the previous post in the context of yesterday's widely reported story about Facebook blocking Robert Scoble's account. Essentially, Facebook's terms and conditions prevent users from scraping information from their profiles using automated scripts, and Scoble appears to have breached those terms.

Most of the debate around the story has focused on the justification for Scoble (or any user) using such a script at all. One of the arguments is that while a user should certainly keep control of his own material (posted videos, notes, images, etc.) he should have no right to pull another user's information from the site. The argument runs that a user who agrees to a 'friend' request from another agrees to that request (and that access to their data by the requesting individual) only in the context of the Facebook relationship.

Although the argument is intuitively attractive, it has a gaping flaw. Facebook's growth relied in part on the 'Friend Finder' feature. That feature encouraged users to send 'friend requests' to their web-mail contacts by trawling their address books. That, of course, was to Facebook's financial advantage. The more sizeable its network the more kudos it has, the more rapid the snowball effect of new sign-ups, and the more attractive a proposition it is to advertisers. The privacy rights of those individuals who received (and continue to receive) friend requests from their contacts, despite having no prior relationship with Facebook, seem less of a concern to Facebook than locking existing users into its network using another angle of the privacy argument.

If a strong argument against users porting their contact information out of Facebook is that such porting would lack the consent of the contacts, then the contradiction in Facebook's position is obvious. While it is happy to bombard those from whom it has received no consent with incitements to join, it is not prepared to let users manipulate the data of other users with whom they have an established relationship (even where there is no commercial reason for such manipulation). That strikes of hypocrisy.

The consequence of this must be the realisation that users need to be more aware of exactly
what it is they sign up to, and what terms they agree, when accepting Facebook's terms and conditions: particularly in terms of how much control they retain over data they upload, and data they obtain through their use of the site. The reality must be, rightly or wrongly, that most users of websites, including Facebook, 'accept' the terms and conditions of those sites (whether by clicking links, ticking boxes or simply using the sites) without ever reading them. If most users do not understand what it is they agree to (and there is a strong case that it is unrealistic to expect users to trawl through and understand the full legalese) there is a significant mis-match in the user-site relationship. In the insurance industry the mis-match between the individual consumer and the large financial institution is managed by the requirement that insurance companies, must provide clear, easy to read, summaries of their policies. It is arguable that websites relying on the exchange of personal data should do the same, explaining in a clear, easily available format exactly what conditions attach to use of the website and, particularly, the content a user sees as his own.

The site linked from the title (dataportability) is an interesting and pertinent response to the issue of the free movement of data.

Blogging, etc.

2008-01-03T23:27:00.000Z

I first set up a blog here in 2003. As far as I recall that was before social networking really took off, and while Web 2.0 (as the public understands it, anyway) was in its early days. Back then a blog seemed like an easier way of maintaining the personal homepage I had hosted at ehayes.co.uk. (The fact I posted 20-odd items in 5 years maybe suggests otherwise.) Now that URL just points to my Facebook profile. And my Facebook profile links in to my Flickr page (which itself contains many of the photos originally hosted at ehayes.co.uk). It's all rather circular.

I started thinking about this after looking at Qdos, which purports to "score" an individual's "digital identity", according to "popularity", "impact", "activity" and "individuality", calculated (as far as I can tell) against use of various popular Web 2.0 resources.

Whether or not Qdos itself has any value is a side issue (for what it's worth, at the moment it looks a lot like an ego-trip for those who already know they spend a lot of time online). It is the fact Qdos aggregates an individual's identities on Facbook, Flickr, Ebay, YouTube, Digg etc. that is interesting. It creates the impression that to be anywhere (or anybody) online, you have to be everywhere; that your online worth is directly proportional to the number of content aggregating and social networking sites you use.

If that is the case then there must be a risk that the non-geek internet user is alienated. Instead of social networks liberating an individual by giving him online visibility, they limit him by giving him only a slither of a presence. He runs the risk of being invisible online to too much of his human network. That must be a major challenge to social networks in 2008. If an individual needs (or wants) multiple identities, how can he best combine them so he still has a meaningful single persona? If social networks are too proprietorial about the identities they contain do they risk a backlash from those who expect to be able to control their "digital identity" (as Qdos would put it) better?