How were my predictions for 2008?

The Christmas decorations are in the shops, people are having Christmas parties, the current affairs programs are off TV, so the year has ended, right? What do you mean, your calendar has something called “December”? Bah! This is the 21st Century! One-twelfth of the year is just thrown away!

Back in January I made some Predictions for 2008. Since 2008 has already ended, let’s see how I went.

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Crikey: Oh no, Google took a photo of my house!

Crikey logo

[This article was first published in Crikey yesterday.]

This morning Australians woke to the news that Google’s Street View has taken photos of their street, their office, their school — their home! — and published them for all to see. Doubtless we’ll now see a flood of stories screeching “Invasion of privacy!” Hardly.

A picture taken on a public street isn’t “private”. A house is a visible, physical object that anyone can walk past and photograph. Its address is a known fact. Anyone can post pictures online with a description. Real estate agents do it all the time. All Google has done is photographed “everywhere” all at once, and given us the results.

Worried that knowledge of who lives in your house will become public? That data is already available — in the phone book, in most cases, or the electoral roll. If you’ve done any renovations recently, there’s probably even a floor plan of your house on your local council’s website.

Besides, when you use Street View, chances are the very first thing you’ll look up is your own home. Knowing this, Google can simply cross-match that with everything they already know about you: every Google search you’ve done, every link you’ve followed, every YouTube video you’ve watched — and, if a website uses the “free” Google Analytics or runs Google AdSense advertising, Google also knows about every such website you’ve ever visited. Congratulations, you just let them write your address across the top of their dossier!

And isn’t Google owned by the CIA anyway? Beware The Googling… ! [Insert maniacal laugh here.]

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Thursday Reading, 6 March 2008, 2nd edition

Photography of Justice Michael Kirby

There’s just too much Good Stuff to read today! A speech by Justice Michael Kirby (pictured) to the Internet Industry Association last month, Law making meets technology, is a magnificent summary of the challenge facing legislators (and judges) in the face of rapidly-advancing technology. There’s also related news from Canada, where a bar was ordered to stop scanning people’s ID cards and keeping the data (hat-tip to Threat Level).

What is “data portability” and why should you care?

Data portability is the capability to control, share, and move data from one system to another, says Wikipedia. Michael Pick of Smashcut Media has made a very short video explaining it more clearly.


DataPortability – Connect, Control, Share, Remix from Smashcut Media on Vimeo.

Data portability will become more important as more are more of our lives are conducted online. And the issues need to be thrashed out it advance — especially when people like Facebook reckon that even if you delete your account they get to keep your information forever. The Data Portability Workgroup is discussing it as the IT industry level, but where are are politicians and non-government organisations on this?

Thanks to Peter Black’s Freedom to Differ for the pointer.