We will be live blogging the PII2012 conference for PDEC.
Currently, Natalie Fonseca, Christine Herron (Intel Capital), Kevin Mahaffey (Lookout), Rob Sherman(Facebook), and Anne Toth (@cleanfreak) are discussing company approaches to privacy.
Rob is talking about how to make privacy a value add for the company. This is interesting given the controversy surrounding the imposition of openness about people’s personal data, and the rapid changes in personal data management, the management of default settings, and the complexity of their management interfaces. Shows the need for 4th party management of privacy in big services like Facebook.
Rob says that Facebook’s position with respect to plugins on its site is more about educating developers rather than creating a uniform environment for safe use of the site. Kevin mentioned that many developers don’t care very much about personal data that’s grabbed and they are more interested in revenue than empathy for their users.
This is one branch of a very unattractive tree where digital dossiers are assembled about even friends of friends. It makes sense that Facebook in the short term will make plugin apps conform to their privacy methods and standards. In the longer term, the only answer is to enable users to use 4th party services that manage their relationships to sites, plugin apps. In the really long term, Facebook really doesn’t need to know much information about their users. They just need to provide relationship management and let the personal data ecosystem players manage personal data and support avenues for monetization.
“Engineers are hoarders,” noted Christine. There is a duality between the data level needed for product viability and the level needed for the business side of the organization.
Kevin is talking now about the rise of permission management functions like those included in the Android platform. He says that this is a really cool development.
Heads are nodding about giving users ‘control.’ Methinks this is more of a positioning issue rather than a real acknowledgement of the users personal data being harvested in exchange for control of the data. FB’s valuation is $130 per user, divide that by a 3-year valuation and that means that personal data is worth just over $40 per user per year, as priced by the market.
by Kelly.
Editor, Personal Data Journal
@personaldataj
Hi, Thanks for taking the time to share the messages and conversations from PII. I would have loved to attend and hear it for myself by New Zealand is a long way away. Look forward ot more posts and maybe seeing you at the next event. Regards – Ross