After a strong 365 days in a successful 2012, it didn”t seem worth it to post yet another reflection on 2012 being “the year of Privacy Policy/Terms of Service.” There was the large SOPA debate in the U.S. and then just recently, the poetic justice of Zuckerberg”s sister having a private photo go public. I counted more than a dozen changes in social media platform terms and conditions. Even the recent Instagram change in Terms of Service and then their imminent retreat –after taking on water from users and fleeing users–made the message clear that in the web software era: play with privacy and user data without transparent logic, and you play with the very lifeblood of your business model.
Even my 10 year-old–who is getting quite creative in taking pictures (like his dad)–understands that sharing his creative expressions with people is powerful, powerful stuff. The value of a service like Facebook is (painfully) obvious (to dad) because of the simplicity and ease of distribution that hardware with software now provides. The only thing that isn”t easy to explain to my son is that these images are no longer his once sent.
Nowadays, information and therefore business moves at the speed of the web and the reason for these clandestine and often radical shifts in “privacy land grabs” are based on one fact: our data (i.e. from personal party pics to valuable I.P.) is no longer just our currency in the connected digital world.
It is what makes the web valuable. And online casino at this speed, we are accelerating towards an exchange where such exploitation only can deliver diminished creativity and openness to produce anything and share it.
Thank heaven that not all successful web software/service models are based on these kind of exploitations models (i.e. using user data to market to advertisers). A company like Flickr, who uses Creative Commons, is a good example of how not to abuse the trust people hand over to such online platforms. The truly valued platforms, where individual users are not shackled to privacy policies (constantly changing), and are left to simply play with new found possibilities and freedom to express themselves.
We need more 10 year-olds in business to provide reality checks on what is simply valuable in the digital world. I would like to commend and celebrate the birthday of one such 10 year old: the Creative Commons team. At Open-Xchange, Creative Commons is part of our business in providing value and service to our client-partners.
Happy Birthday, Creative Commons!
