I talk a great deal on this blog about data issues, privacy and ownership, anonymity and copyright, however is there a clear connection between them? Should we care about who has access to our data, who we are and control over our access to data?
I think that these issues are so connected that we need to do something about how they are managed at a federal level. Currently, it's rather easy for governments to request data from internet sites. Some times they require warrants or court orders other times the companies simply hand over the data. Savvy users understand how their data is collected and used by companies. I'll be the first to admit that I'm learning about this as I'm going. It's not easy because some times it's really inconvenient to really protect your data. The more sites that are connected together the more likely one of your accounts are to be hacked. Linking sites also creates other problems. Specifically Facebook and Google. Twitter isn't as bad, but it easily could be.
Why are Facebook and Google bad though? First Facebook is the worst by far. Both Zuckerbergs have made statements proclaiming privacy a bad thing.We can see this erosion with the creation of Facebook's OpenGraph and seamless information sharing. We've all see the increase in the amount of information that our friends are sharing. Such as Spotify and articles they've read. Which now no longer click through, but end up going to some app from that company. All of this information is being stored and sold to customers with your name on it. Effectively you've lost your ability to view websites freely without it being stored on multiple servers by multiple companies at the same time.
Google comes in a close second with their privacy problems. They aren't any better with Google+ as they require names at this time. We also don't know what Google does with the information that you give them when you link accounts together. By giving access to Google when you sign into another website Google is learning more about you which will likely be used to adjust your filter bubble.
Without anonymity or at least pseudonymity it's significantly more difficult to control access to your data. Putting a buffer between you and the people that are interested in learning about you as a person can protect you from a lot of bad people. However, whenever there are discussions about anonymity or pseudonyms some one almost always makes the argument that it will increase the safety for child molesters or terrorists.
The Copyright industry is one of the most vocal advocates of this tactic. In fact, this is one of the arguments being used for SOPA. They argue that if you don't have anything to hide then you have nothing to worry about. Well, I don't buy that argument. People have privacy fences for a reason around their yard. Why not do the same thing for your data? Being anonymous doesn't mean your bad, it just means your being safe.
Anonymity makes it more difficult for copyright holders to come after people who download movies without buying the movie. They want to know if your downloading it regardless of the fact that you might actually own the movie in some other physical medium and are using the digital copy as a back up. They also don't really care if you go out and buy the movie after watching it. In fact the Swiss government came out and said that buying a movie or song after downloading is extremely common.
Based on these three points, I believe that everyone should be pushing leaders to increase the ability for users to be anonymous on the internet. This will protect users data from identity theft, allow users better control over their data and decrease the impact of the filter bubble. We must accept the fact that people may use the freedom in unethical ways. However, this doesn't mean that it's unethical for people to be anonymous online and doesn't mean that they are unethical. It means that we need to define clear laws and procedures to deal with unethical or illegal activities in these systems. Without these guidelines we are likely to have no control over our data.
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