Jaiku Bought By Google, Some Fear Privacy Issues

Platonic writes "According to the New York Times, Google's recent purchase of Jaiku, a little-known micro-blog service (think Twitter) might raise privacy concerns due to the automated nature of the web site's services. From the article: "The deal, announced this month, has much of the tech-tracking blogosphere abuzz. Some claim it is the harbinger of a new, truly interconnected world, where a chunk of our existence will migrate online ... Chris Messina, an open-source entrepreneur and founder of the consulting firm Citizen Agency, takes it a step further. In a blog post after the Jaiku deal was announced, he said that he envisioned a world where all information had migrated online, where the address book "lives in Googleland,"'"

Comments

Jaiku

[jcicora]

I can see the point of people concerned about privacy. However, I think the kind of service discussed in the article, a sort of address book 2.0, sounds pretty cool. Its something I would probably go for if I had a life. And as for the privacy deal, there's nothing forcing people to use this kind of service.

So what? Huh?

[decipher_saint]

For those who were as baffled as I at first FTA:

Petteri Koponen, one of the two founders of Jaiku, described the service as a "holistic view of a person's life," rather than just short posts. "We extract a lot of information automatically, especially from mobile phones," Mr. Koponen said from Mountain View, Calif., where the company is being integrated into Google. "This kind of information paints a picture of what a person is thinking or doing."

So this tool automatically gathers little scraps of information about a user and draws lines between what it thinks are logical connections (like any good tinfoil hat aficionado might do in a dank basement) into some sort of tag cloud for that user. Ostensibly the use is used by applications as a sort of "stuff about you" repository, so maybe in one application you set your default home address as something when you go to use an application that requires your home address it could dip into that repository and insert it for you.

The pro: It's like having an assistant
The con: It's like having an assistant who works for the FBI

YRO Ad Libs!

[R2.0]

_________ (random company)bought by Google, ____________ (some random blogger) fears _______________ (some wild ass speculation).

Jaiku haiku

[benhocking]

Jaiku, blogger site Once alone, now of Google Privacy, evil

Re:WIll Happen, People Will Fear

[sakdoctor]

Are you saying you value privacy. What are YOU hiding?