Response #3: Bill of Rights

Do we need OWNERSHIP, CONTROL AND FREEDOM?

Ideally, Yes! We should have ownership of our personal information (profiles, friends, and contacts), we should control how we share the information and we need the freedom to grant persistent access to our personal info. But, we DO actually have this? Nop! All this social sites keep record of every picture and information that you have there. You’re putting your information out there and no matter how protected you think it may be it is in the public domain and anybody with the malice and sufficient knowledge can gain access to it and you as an user should assume that everything you post on any social website is from that moment on public domain.

That’s why we need to build privacy, we need to have the right of choose what information share or not. I think that we have kind of privacy in the way that we can choose on Facebook or MySpace who have access to my information (see Facebook Statement of Rights). But we totally loose all our privacy against the entity or organization, ones I post a picture or information they have recorded. They own it. (See MySpace Privacy Policy)

So we have no other choice than be careful with what we write and where we do it because once it is written, you cannot erase it. There will always be a file of what you do or not on the web. We should get together and fight for the institution of the Bill of Rights.

But, the companies are going to like this? They are going to agree? Hmm, I don’t think so…