On beyond statistics.
Though it's still a rumor, I doubt that the day that Google offers
me a few gigabytes of storage for a virtual hard drive on their servers is very far off. And when
they offer it, I'm going to take it. I'll still need a hard drive for the kids'
games, and for programs that will (still) run only from my computer and not from
the internet, but I'll be willing to pay for ubiquitous access with a change in
the way I relate to privacy on the web. And when that happens, it's fair to say
that the amount of information that they'll have on me (or be able to know about
me) could, at least in the way that we relate to privacy today, honestly be frightening.
I'm good at forgetting, but their databases will remember everything. They'll
end up knowing more about me than I do.
Before we become overly upset with Google or some other service, we should remember
that the poster-child of the benevolent web, the wiki, also doesn't forget. Part
of the beauty of the wiki is its user-friendliness. Wikis are simple to use and
to play around with. But because they also keep a record of all of the changes
made to them, they're also capable of keeping tabs on us. Are we supposed to understand
from this that even openness can become a threat?
Go to: Still running it up the flagpole