Open Privacy

Open Privacy is a relatively new concept that was ushered in with the Internet/Social Networking era. It is an oxymoron, albeit one that needs to be turned into a NOT oxymoron – whatever that is…

The problem starts when people, maybe even you, put personal information on-line that you’d like to share with other people who also happen to be on-line. You might, for example, want to tell your close friends that you won some money in Atlantic City gambling over the weekend. Okay, a far stretch, but it works for this example. The thing is that there is a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning and you really don’t want the pastor/rabbi/minister/etc… of your church/synagogue/mosque/temple/etc… to know that you are a gambler. And he/she just also happens to be part of the on-line community and would/could easily find out about your secret life in front of the slot machines and make an example out of you the next time they preach.

The social web sites at large seem to solve this problem by allowing users to block certain other users from seeing certain parts of their information. This seems to work rather well if the user is a “power user” and understands the nuances of the security scheme that is provided for their use. Of course, the security scheme can be as complex and confusing (and powerful) as possible if you are a “larger” social network presumably because enough people out there understand it (or just don’t use it) and can explain it to their friends (or spy on them) as appropriate.

The real problem comes in when you are a smaller start-up social network clamoring for users/members. On one hand you want to be as open (read social) as possible and on the other hand you still need to protect your user’s/member’s privacy all without confusing them. Start off too “open” and you lose a bunch of users/members who would rather be a bit more private and start off too “closed” and your social network looks boring and… no one wants to come to a boring party.

This is our current struggle at PUBLIC CHALK. Open enough to be interesting, closed enough to protect our members, and security simple enough that our members and users will understand and use it.

ETJ