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Google Urged To Let Personal Data Fade Away

Posted by timothy on from the dust-in-the-wind dept.

jee4all writes with this excerpt from E-week: "Researchers say personal information should 'degrade' — becoming less specific over time — to protect users' privacy. Rather than amassing personal data and holding on to it as long as legally possible, companies such as Google should allow the data to degrade over time, according to researchers. In an interview with the BBC this week, Dutch researcher Harold van Heerde discussed his work on the idea of allowing data to becomes less specific over time. Letting the specifics gradually disappear could protect consumer privacy while also meeting the needs of service providers, he said."

92 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Fade away? by ak_hepcat · · Score: 4, Funny

    I always heard it was better to burn out...

    --
    Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
    1. Re:Fade away? by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm degrading over time so why not my personal data?

    2. Re:Fade away? by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      My, my, hey, hey.

      Offtopic mod for your post? I guess... but the lyrics of that song actually have some relevance.

      Out of the blue [blue == anonymity]
      and into the black [black == data records]
      They give you this, [free services]
      but you pay for that [with loss of privacy]
      And once you're gone, [not using their services anymore]
      you can never come back [into anonymity]
      When you're out of the blue
      and into the black.

      Of course, I think Neil Young was referring to death and fame, not services and privacy. But the man has a real way with words.

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    3. Re:Fade away? by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Yes, they could just use Western Digital drives, and watch the data degrade over time with no extra effort...it'll be all gone in six months, tops!

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    4. Re:Fade away? by D+Ninja · · Score: 1

      Old sailors have already mastered this trick. They don't die...they just...fade away.

    5. Re:Fade away? by kestasjk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Because digital data is far easier to copy and maintain over time than it is to degrade it manually.

      --
      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
    6. Re:Fade away? by pinkushun · · Score: 1

      If only some memories could be as easily erased like digital data!

  2. In related news by Bovius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Data naturally goes stale like bread, can be fed to ducks.

    All of the language around "letting data degrade" seems to imply that it would be no work, no trouble at all for Google to make this happen. Just let it get less specific, that determining the rules for gracefully removing data while maintaining integrity is the natural order of database storage.

    Let them eat cake.

    1. Re:In related news by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 1

      Let them eat cake.

      Who? The public, the researcher, Google or the aforementioned ducks?

    2. Re:In related news by sortius_nod · · Score: 2, Funny

      I don't think it's healthy to feed ducks cake...

    3. Re:In related news by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wildly off topic here, but if you want something entertaining, throw an entire slice of bread (or, better, pitta bread) to the ducks. One of them will grab it whole and then swim away as fast as it can from the others. As it does, the bread will drag in the water and bits will drop off. Most of the bread goes to the ducks following it. It's entertaining to watch, and is probably a metaphor for the music industry or something.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  3. Great idea! by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While they're at it, they chould take a huge pile of cash and slowly burn it to the ground, because having things of value totally sucks. Ooh, ooh, and buy a Van Gogh and leave it out in the rain to dissolve!

    I'd ask what he's smoking, but I think it's pretty obvious.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    1. Re:Great idea! by ciaohound · · Score: 3, Insightful

      take a huge pile of cash and slowly burn it to the ground

      Ah, the '90's. It's hard to believe they've been gone for a whole decade already.

      --
      Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
    2. Re:Great idea! by DriedClexler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, it sounds like yet another professor blowing good money to produce a study that 4chan could debunk in an hour.

      Still, it got me thinking about a sort of similar idea: instead of expecting corporations to stab themselves in the eye by degrading their data, what about using a kind of data that is designed to become less useful over time, and then, as an individual, only sharing that kind of data with businesses.

      Think about it this way: why do they put your date of birth on your ID cards rather than your age? Well, duh, your age while change over time but your DOB won't. If you ever need to know someone's age, you can infer it from the current date and their DOB.

      So if you gave your age to a company you're doing business with, that information becomes less useful over time because you're less likely to still be that age. (Of course, if they record the time you gave them that data, they can get pretty close, but just focus on the general concept.) Giving your age would be preferable to giving your DOB.

      Similarly, telling someone where I live right now is less useful information as time goes by, as there's a chance I could have moved that increases with time. Or consider credit cards and email addresses that exist for only temporary usage.

      Is it possible, then, to reformat other kinds of data so that they become less useful over time? People could feel safer giving this data to someone.

      --
      Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
    3. Re:Great idea! by martin-boundary · · Score: 3, Interesting
      The value of information is not absolute. All it takes is the right kind of legislation, like what the EU privacy directives attempt to do, to change the value from positive to negative.

      With the right kind of laws in place, it would become much more onerous for a company to keep the data it collects longterm rather than throw it away as soon as possible.

    4. Re:Great idea! by angelwolf71885 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      umm didn't we just piss away a huge pile of cash in January 2009?

    5. Re:Great idea! by gregrah · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There are companies that exist now whose sole purpose in life is to pull together peoples' personal information from disparate sources, combine that information into astonishingly detailed profiles of just about anyone in the United States, and sell that information to interested parties (collection agencies/repo men for example).

      This is despite the fact that data mining as a discipline is still relatively young. Since data mining is such a profitable discipline, it is almost guaranteed to develop at a much faster pace than our ability to obfuscate our personal identity.

      I wouldn't worry about it all that much though... it's not like I've got anything to hide!

    6. Re:Great idea! by corbettw · · Score: 1

      Yes, but how do you set the expiration date on that data? Information doesn't decay as there is no biological (or other entropy-effected) component to it. I think anyone advocating a terminal date for any sort of data, without explaining how that date will be managed, is just setting themselves up for failure.

      --
      God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
    7. Re:Great idea! by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I wrote a post to alt.drugs one night when I was in college in 1990. I started getting flak about it five or six years ago from one relative after another (starting with my mother) as they got on the Internet and did searches for my name. No matter what I accomplish in life, my alt.drugs post from 20 years ago stubbornly remains on the first page of Google results.

    8. Re:Great idea! by ScrewMaster · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There are companies that exist now whose sole purpose in life is to pull together peoples' personal information from disparate sources, combine that information into astonishingly detailed profiles of just about anyone in the United States, and sell that information to interested parties (collection agencies/repo men for example).

      ChoicePoint. And they got caught selling information to criminals (and I don't mean just the corporate type) as well as suffering some severe security breaches. Not a good thing at all, and when I heard about that it made me question the validity of their business and whether it's worth the risk to society.

      This is despite the fact that data mining as a discipline is still relatively young. Since data mining is such a profitable discipline, it is almost guaranteed to develop at a much faster pace than our ability to obfuscate our personal identity.

      The problem here is that when you accumulate too much of just about anything it becomes dangerous. Put a hundred tons of TNT in a warehouse ... sooner or later someone is going to get hurt. The same thing happens when you collect terabyte after terabyte of personal data and store it away. Yes, it's valuable ... but just as we have restrictions on how explosives can be transported and stored, we need some serious regulation of how and why corporations can store personal data, and when they must, by law, divest themselves of it. Unfortunately, governments (specifically I'm talking about mine, the United States Federal Government) view these giant private data stores as a way to perform data mining that would be illegal as hell if they were to try and do it themselves. So there's little motivation on the part of our lawmakers to try and do anything about this issue.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    9. Re:Great idea! by blai · · Score: 1

      who's this 'we'?

      --
      In soviet Russia, God creates you!
    10. Re:Great idea! by kestasjk · · Score: 1

      And the Seinfeld Kramer actor will forever be remembered as the nigger-comedian-guy, it sucks but it's not Google's fault that the stupid things people do stick.

      --
      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
    11. Re:Great idea! by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Uh, that's different. Michael Richards did something that should have struck anyone at the time as being impossible to live down. My alt.drugs post wasn't stupid (except for being in alt.drugs), not even interesting. I warned people about the low LD-50 of an over-the-counter medicine. (Lots of people now seem to think "LD-50" is a roofie or something.)

      Google displays USENET posts that go back to 1981, when the future of the Internet was unforeseen by anyone. Even Nostradamus was posting pictures of his penis on the alt.binaries groups back then. None of the posts you see Google pulling up would have been written if their authors knew that Google would be proudly showing them to everyone 20, 30 years later whenever anyone searches for your name.

    12. Re:Great idea! by dwye · · Score: 1

      Are you the only person with your name? My name is fairly uncommon, yet when I google it I come up with posts or emails from at least two different people; when I was in the whois database, about a decade ago, I received email every six months or so to someone else with my name (and different someones each time, from the contents). Clearly, you should just say that someone else with your name posted to alt.drugs (unless you leaked too many details in it for it NOT to be you) once upon a time.

      Alternately, go with it, and travel on the lecture circuit like Timothy Leary did ;-)

    13. Re:Great idea! by bickerdyke · · Score: 1

      Similarly, telling someone where I live right now is less useful information as time goes by, as there's a chance I could have moved that increases with time.

      Cellphone numbers!

      I keep getting telemerketer calls on my cellphone meant for the guy who had that number assigend before me. And that even though there usually is a 6 months grace period before a phone number is assigned again.

      'Degrading' is the wrong word, as it would actually improve the quality of the data. (Less outdated data!)

      --
      bickerdyke
    14. Re:Great idea! by Chowderbags · · Score: 1

      Yeah. I think he might have been almost nostalgic for the days when $10,000,000 turned into only $1,000,000, rather than the current 100,000,000,000 turning into 100,000 (plus or minus the CxOs golden parachutes).

    15. Re:Great idea! by JustABlitheringIdiot · · Score: 1

      I'd ask what he's smoking, but I think it's pretty obvious.

      Yup pretty obvious he has some Jeffrey. Also explains why the furry wall has a hole worn in it.

    16. Re:Great idea! by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 1

      Are you the only person with your name?

      Yep. Plus, I'm famous.

    17. Re:Great idea! by mrogers · · Score: 1
      Using short-term (biodegradable?) identifiers is an interesting idea, but I think it goes against two of the reasons companies collect data in the first place. The first is to confirm that you're a real, tangible human being, which means they want to connect your present data to the past. The second is to bombard you with marketing crap for the rest of your life, which means they want to connect your present data to the future. So using short-term identifiers is no better aligned with their interests than degrading data.

      Random degradation sounds like an ad hoc solution to me anyway. Data privacy research has established a pretty firm theoretical foundation in the last few years, and ideas like "let's swap some stuff around until it's all random" are starting to sound as shonky as homebrew encryption algorithms.

    18. Re:Great idea! by kestasjk · · Score: 1

      Fair enough, but your post didn't really indicate that it was a harmless post about taking the effects of daily aspirin, rather something that family members would be ashamed of

      I don't really see why if it was nothing to be ashamed of it would be a bother, but without a link to the post which I doubt you'd want to provide it's hard to make any further judgement

      --
      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
  4. Benefit? by Aladrin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google could benefit from this according TFA? Seriously? Giving up data on their customers and replacing it with less useful data benefits them? I seriously doubt it. Especially since we've already seen what people in general think about privacy.

    No, if Google wanted to go down that road, it would be MUCH smarter to allow people to specify how much of their personal data Google can have, and have a way to remove that data at any time.

    --
    "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    1. Re:Benefit? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It might help them retain customers. The two reasons that I switched to using DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine were the user interface and the privacy policy. The do a double-bounce trick when you leave the site to block the referrer information, so even if a site is running Google analytics, Google does not get information on my search terms. If they had a better privacy policy (and hadn't spent a lot of effort this year making their user interface worse), I might still be providing them with that data.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:Benefit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      However, because of the data Google collects from their users, they are in a better position to know (1) who doesn't like their personal data stored, (2) what data shouldn't be stored, and (3) what is the optimal data degradation/removal to be used for said person.

      It's the same with ads. You might say "Let me choose my own ads!" but Google knows better than you do what you like.

    3. Re:Benefit? by Iamthecheese · · Score: 1

      Yes! Google can benefit form this. Here's how:

      1: Widely advertise how it is helping users by letting data gracefully degrade.
      2: Set the age it starts to degrade long after the time they're presently deleting the information (and only for information they're already deleting)
      3: Pretend they're doing the users a favor while actually keeping more data, longer.
      4: Apply this principal to any data they want to keep.
      5: Profit!

      --
      If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
    4. Re:Benefit? by kestasjk · · Score: 1

      I think Google knows which side its bread is buttered on; if/when a better privacy policy becomes beneficial for its bottom line it'll adopt one. Until then I doubt DuckDuckGo is a significant threat

      --
      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
    5. Re:Benefit? by dwye · · Score: 1

      You are not Google's customer, but the resource that Google's customers, the advertisers, pay to get info about. Since millions of other people don't mind giving Google their searching history, they will not care that you withhold yours, even if you are Bill Gates III.

    6. Re:Benefit? by bickerdyke · · Score: 1

      Google could benefit from this according TFA? Seriously? Giving up data on their customers and replacing it with less useful data benefits them?

      Well, yes.

      They only need to relize that wrong, outdated data isn't an asset anymore, but a liability as it might lead to costly mistakes.

      --
      bickerdyke
    7. Re:Benefit? by PerfectionLost · · Score: 1

      Why do you have a problem with people knowing what you searched for to get to their site? Didn't you want to go to their site? Letting a website owner know how and why you got to their site ultimately helps them make a better site for you to use.

    8. Re:Benefit? by theaceoffire · · Score: 1

      "Hang on, I am going to duckduckgo 'Can Pelicans eat cats'."
      "Hey Guys, try duckduckgo'ing "Cat Farts" in youtube!"
      "I didn't find anything when I duckduckgo'ed it."

      Oh yeah, this is going to take off like hotcakes.
      Google, watch out!

      --
      I steal signatures. This one used to be yours.
    9. Re:Benefit? by vakuona · · Score: 1

      Customers aren't necessarily the people paying the money, at least, not directly. Google users are paying Google indirectly.

  5. Good luck with that by spartacus_prime · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Once you post something on the Internet, it doesn't really disappear. I Google myself from time to time and am shocked to find profiles on websites I haven't visited in ages. Periodically purging data would be a better idea, but then these providers would miss out on all the money they get from selling said data.

    --
    If you can read this, it means that I bothered to log in.
    1. Re:Good luck with that by vlueboy · · Score: 1

      I Google myself from time to time and am shocked to find profiles on websites I haven't visited in ages.

      I hate finding profiles on websites I have NEVER visited. Data miners like pipl, mylife, intelius, cogmap and spock have created profiles for me based on stuff as simple as a friend's blog containing my full name. It's annoying when you can't take the stuff down because technically you don't own the data. It's more annoying when I just want my cool stuff to float up so employers see my real-life achievements. Apparently the above crawlers don't give a hoot about factoring achievements in, so they just displace good stuff away while they put useless crap at the top. I've hidden data trying to float down old and irrelevant stuff (2003 friendster profile!) down into oblivion.

      Oh, regarding the article, it's pointless to dump data in parts. Imagine the Feds running an investigation to solve a murder, but finding only an IP from Google because their policy were to "minimize trouble" to people they otherwise ruthlessly milked. I disagree with organized spying, but partial collection leads to dead-ends. Deadends cause otherwise assuring FBI documentaries to end in "killer is still at large" :)

  6. It would certainly help with search results. by earls · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Then I'd stop finding two and three year old solutions to new problems in new versions of software. Yeah, you can "filter" Google search results by date, but filter features are mediocre at best... And I'm unaware of a way to make them persistent. The majority of my Google search now-a-days end up as "searchterm" and then twenty "-negativekeywords" following it.

    1. Re:It would certainly help with search results. by corbettw · · Score: 1

      Yeah, you can "filter" Google search results by date, but filter features are mediocre at best.

      That's because data doesn't have a "best by" date. The reason your search results suck is the same reason this entire enterprise will fail spectacularly: data doesn't naturally expire, and there is no physical mechanism by which it would.

      --
      God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
    2. Re:It would certainly help with search results. by PerfectionLost · · Score: 1

      Here's an idea. Try using the same words other people use to describe things.

  7. People change as does your data. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Your data chances over time. What is marketable to you will change with age, income, politics, hormone changes, you name it. This makes sense to me.

    1. Re:People change as does your data. by ihxo · · Score: 1

      Just like splice, I change sex every couple of month also.

  8. Re:Data is valuble by ducomputergeek · · Score: 1

    pfssst....they'll become a trillion dollar company anyway thanks to inflation. Although a Trillion dollars isn't what it used to be...

    --
    "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
  9. Knackers by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    The premise is wrong. Non-digital data fades because it takes considerable effort to prevent it doing so; it takes up room (so it gets chucked out), gets pissed on by cats, eaten by rats, set on fire, contaminated with fungus, made into paper aeroplanes.

    A hard drive full of data doesn't really require much more care and feeding than an empty one; to selectively retire shit off it actually requires effort - and who can be arsed? Not me.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Knackers by clarkkent09 · · Score: 1

      I don't understand the purpose of this either but it wouldn't necessarily take much effort. Something like a days_to_live attribute on each field in a database might be enough and it only needs to be set once, when the db is created.

      --
      Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
    2. Re:Knackers by moonbender · · Score: 1

      Sure, you can create the field, and the db can delete those records when the time comes. But that won't delete the same records from backups, replicated copies, etc. So it wouldn't be all that difficult to access data which should have been forgotten. OTOH, for many practical purposes the data would be gone, so I guess it would be an improvement.

      --
      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
    3. Re:Knackers by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Right, because only one copy of any particular item of data ever exists.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  10. Instead, we can grow up by Improv · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We'll learn to deal with the fact that people mature over time and the things they do when very young might not represent them when they're older. This lengthening of memories should let us mature a bit rather than try to hide in the bush.

    --
    For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
    1. Re:Instead, we can grow up by geekoid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Enough people will have so much stupid stuff recorded no one will care anymore. That will be a good day.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    2. Re:Instead, we can grow up by by+(1706743) · · Score: 2, Funny

      Indeed; when the generation which grew up on myspace and facebook produces "important" people (e.g., congresspeople, senators) it's likely that the only candidates with no dirt on them are the ones who were socially inept in their college days.

      Come to think of it, that might give the /. crowd something of an edge...

    3. Re:Instead, we can grow up by ^_^x · · Score: 1

      That would be great. Unfortunately something like that still counts as a profound personal realization, and while you may be so enlightened, it won't stop others from holding something you said when you were 12 on a random message board against you till the day you die.

      Personally I just change pseudonyms from time to time, but that can be hard in cases where you have an active group of friends who knows one name. If you publicly refer to the change, to a data harvester it's as good as using the old name.

    4. Re:Instead, we can grow up by nine-times · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm a bit torn. I don't think you're wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if some people end up sort of "branded for life" because their personal info never goes away. It'd be nice to think we could all "grow up", but... well, have you met people? Like, in real life, have you talked to real people about stuff? Do you really think they're going to "grow up"?

      On the other hand, you're right that this level of information probably shouldn't matter, and perhaps our culture will evolve to deal with having this level of information available. Also, I somewhat like the idea of having so much historical information available; perhaps one day our computers will be able to do interesting things with this glut of information.

      Either way, I'm going to stick to the good old strategy of using aliases, and hope that nobody ever realizes that "nine-times" is really "Bill Gates".

    5. Re:Instead, we can grow up by outsider007 · · Score: 1

      I don't mind google spying on me because they promised they wouldn't be evil.

      --
      If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
    6. Re:Instead, we can grow up by moonbender · · Score: 1

      That ignores the presumed fact that things you do in the past do tend to represent people's behaviour when they're older. The humane and mature (and even the sensible) way would be to ignore this, but those are not always categories for businesses hiring or insurance companies.

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      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
    7. Re:Instead, we can grow up by tool462 · · Score: 1

      Perhaps, but I'm more inclined to think that those who are best able to control their personal information will be king.

      The vast majority of us will have a thorough enough record of our past deeds and misdeeds to be torn down at any time by anybody who would wish to do so.
      In theory, mutually assured destruction should prevent anybody from wanting to.
      The ones who will be successful in doing so, however, will be the ones with less dirt to dig through.

      I personally think we should just get the internet really really drunk so it blacks out and forgets everything between puberty and grad school.

  11. Discovery in legal cases? by maxwells_deamon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Must be some sort of firm policy or they will be accused of selective policy.

    Also, "Degrade" implies slow and gradual steps to me. How can this be done? Slowly randomly corrupt it?

    Imagine the programing updates. These fields can be trusted if d_update 6 but otherwise...

    A staged firm policy I could see. But if you miss a deadline or get ahead, then the lawyers eat you up. Also backups? Keep it, or nuke it. Allow access control to increase perhaps.

    1. Re:Discovery in legal cases? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Hard drives fail. Google has a lot of hard drives and enough of them fail that they can publish papers comparing reliability of disks from different manufacturers, in different conditions, and so on. They work around this problem through replication. Picking some made-up numbers, let's assume a hard drive has a 10% chance of failing each year. If you store data on three drives, then the probability that you will have it in a year's time is 99.9% (three things with a probability of 10% have to happen for it to be lost). If you store it on four drives, the probability is 99.99%.

      On the other hand, the probability if you store it on one drive is only 90%. After two years, it's only 81%. After five years, it's only 60%. After ten years, it's down at 35%. If you just put each record on one drive[1] then 90% of your data that is less than a year old will survive, but only 60% of five year old and only 35% of ten year old data will survive.

      As I recall, Google actually does something a bit like this. Less important data is replicated less aggressively, so it does degrade over time, although only on average.

      [1] And my completely made-up number for hard drive failure is accurate, which it probably isn't, but it serves as an example.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:Discovery in legal cases? by net28573 · · Score: 1

      this makes sense considering the storage mechanism is magnetism. magnetic fields or a magnets strength do decrease over time. this is why im old fassioned and just use dvd discs to store my data on. it takes a log longer but with two backups being backed up every year its a lot cheaper in price but more expensive in time used.

      --
      RIP TRICERATOPS, YOU NEVER EXISTED
  12. Sorta Like This? by The+Wild+Norseman · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dutch researcher Harold van Heerde discussed his work on the idea of allowing data to becomes less specific over time. Letting the specifics gradually disappear could protect consumer privacy while also meeting the needs of service providers

    Sorta like me, for example?

    The Wild Norseman -->

    A Norseman -->

    Some Guy -->

    A Person, Place or Thing -->

    A Nobody -->

    Anonymous Coward

    --
    "A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
  13. Let Personal Data Fade Away by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

    Except in Australia...

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  14. Good Grief... by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 1

    I don't see this happening. The "GoogleSphere" revolves around leveraging personal information. It's *ALL* about data mining and relationships.

    You know, Google isn't the only one, organically your info can live in the Intertubes forever. It's up to the indevidual to protect their personal information, not blame someone else for their own stupidity of telling everyone on Facebook or whatever that they like to feel up boys while loaded on malt beer...

    --
    "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
    1. Re:Good Grief... by blair1q · · Score: 1

      And the "FirefoxSphere" is all about keeping Adblock turned on, and wondering what everyone's being so fussy about.

    2. Re:Good Grief... by joh · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but with more and more "personal" computing happening in "the cloud" people will hardly know that their data is *not* (only) on their device. I mean, putting something up at facebook is one thing but using all the fine and free Google apps on your Android phone is different, isn't it?

      No, it isn't. A whole fucking lot of your personal data ends up on Google's servers, mail, calendar, chats, navigation data, voice profile, ad-tracking, search terms, whatever. It's not only things you put up for others, just using your funky new cellphone as intended does that for you.

      Google isn't the only one but it surely is the one with the most extensive data collections in several dimensions of more and more people. It knows where you have been, where you navigated to, whom you mailed, what you said. This *is* different from someone putting up some stupid things on Facebook.

    3. Re:Good Grief... by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but with more and more "personal" computing happening in "the cloud" people will hardly know that their data is *not* (only) on their device.

      Once again, you are personally responsible for what personal info you put out there. I don't use "the cloud".

      --
      "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
    4. Re:Good Grief... by joh · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but with more and more "personal" computing happening in "the cloud" people will hardly know that their data is *not* (only) on their device.

      Once again, you are personally responsible for what personal info you put out there. I don't use "the cloud".

      This is very clever of you. But suppose millions of people do? Should everyone know where every bit of data on every device goes before he uses it?

      Anyway. So you're saying people should not use Android? Or Bing or assisted GPS? Because, whenever you use AGPS (very convenient that) you "put your location out there". You're saying people should know that and shouldn't use AGPS then? Good luck with that.

      The thing is that you don't "put info out there". That info is taken from you and you're seduced by some "free" and convenient services to let that happen and to not think about it. You're selling your digital blood and soul for shiny glass beads. Well, maybe you don't. Sorry.

      All of this is too new and right now nearly totally unregulated. Companies like Google can almost collect what they want and within their datacenters do what they want with that data. Because they pretend it's not yours anymore at that point. It's theirs.

  15. Wife urged to fucking let it go... by ebystander · · Score: 1

    "Marriage counselors say the subject of arguments should 'degrade' — becoming less specific over time — to protect spousal sanity. Rather than building a huge grudge and holding on to it as long as legally possible, typical marriages should allow the grudge to degrade over time, according to marriage counselors. In an interview with the BBC this week, Dutch researcher Harold van Hashpipe discussed his work on the idea of allowing the subjects of fights to becomes less specific over time. Letting the specifics gradually disappear could protect your marriage while also meeting the needs of your sex life, he said." ctrl+h=fun!

  16. Re:Alternatively, We Should Add Chaff by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 1

    Every day, you should...

    How about "every day" you take Personal Responsibility for the crap you leave on the Intertubes?

    --
    "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
  17. Data degradation useless... by blahplusplus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... because there are so many other alternatives to tracking users and users being too stupid to know about them. i.e. flash. There are all sorts of ways of figuring out who is browsing which, you should look at the number of you're loading data from/sending data to with noscript on. Data degradation would not do anything to stop techniques and companies who collect the same or more data under the radar through "legitimate" means.

  18. Statue of Limitations? by U8MyData · · Score: 1

    The law has a similar provision. I think it would be a good thing as well as a bad thing considering the situation; however, I also think it is necessary. Reading some of the comments such as there should be an inference that people get older and wiser only suffices if everyone recognizes that as fact. The point is, if there is information to help someone gain at your expense, they WILL use it. Limitations are more than useful in this case. Have you ever made a mistake you would rather forget... forever...?

  19. Aggregation by cyberfunkr · · Score: 1

    I think the key to it all would be logical aggregation.

    Consider I do a search for "e3 2010" today. I'm sure millions have. For the moment, it's *ahem* important that Google knows exactly who I am so it can create targeted ads for me. But by next year, or the year after, what's the point?

    Over time, change from the individual to the demographic. Out of those millions, there has to be at least a few that are of the same age, gender, geographic location, etc. as me. Does it really matter that *I* did it or that a something-year-old gender from city, state made the search? The only thing lost is an absolute who.

    By simplifying the data, it becomes easier to mine.

  20. And why exactly would they do this? by jvkjvk · · Score: 1

    I would tend to argue that personally identified data will increase in value the longer data stream in continuous.

    Imagine a 1 year study vs a 20 year study.

    The fact is that we are at the very tip of this phenomena.

    You could then even perhaps begin predicting large trends over the order of decades, based on individual inputs from the boots on the ground, everywhere reporting streams of identifiable information.

    The data may be less valuable to you in terms of your own utility but do not imagine for a moment that it degrades in value to the archivists.

    Regards.

    1. Re:And why exactly would they do this? by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      > The data may be less valuable to you in terms of your own utility but do not
      > imagine for a moment that it degrades in value to the archivists.

      I think it does, for pretty much everyone except perhaps government. People change over time. Knowing what sort of clothing you were buying five years ago is of much less interest to advertisers than is information about your current fashion statement. In fact old data may even be of negative value if it lacks any sort of timestamp.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    2. Re:And why exactly would they do this? by jvkjvk · · Score: 1

      If you can't see how trending data over long timeperiods with minutely tracked detail could be important to entities other than governments, I can't really help you with that. Just because you can't figure out a use for it don't discard it as having "negative value"

      In fact, old data having no timestame being of negative value is totally false, too. It will entirely depend on the heuristics and algorithms applied to that data. The lack of a datafield signifies something as well, and information can be extracted from that too.

      Now as a thought experiment which of these cases would be better for complex analysis (where some data is stale, or missing, etc.):

      * Data with no timestamp

      * No data and no timestamp

      ?

      Regards.

  21. Privacy : look into the wrong direction by kentsin · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Some local people think phone books (white pages), court announcements are hurting privacy.

    Personal data is not secret.

    The problem is that people with our personal data can harm us. Making profit from our data is not a crime, but hurting us, steeling money from our account, sent us spams were.

    It is not a solution to lock down all personal data, which we will give away for good reasons.

    It is to prevent someone to hurt us with our personal data. That is what going to be useful.

    Europeans were very stupid, in they make privacy a problem, they raise the standard level and feel good. They use other people's resource and claim they are green.

    1. Re:Privacy : look into the wrong direction by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      > Personal data is not secret.

      Some is, some isn't. The problem is that most people have exaggerated notions about what is private and labor under the delusion that it is possible to own information.

      Whenever you reveal a fact about yourself to anyone that fact becomes as public as they want to make it. You might be able to sue them if they signed a contract agreeing to keep it secret (a privacy statement on a Web site is not a contract) or file a complaint against them under some misguided "privacy" law but once the data is out there it's out there. Keep your secrets secret. Yes, that can be inconvenient at times. Choose.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  22. Which is it? by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 1

    This is very clever of you. But suppose millions of people do? Should everyone know where every bit of data on every device goes before he uses it?

    When you put your personal information on the Internet, you accept that you lose control over that info. Or, you are an idiot. Which is it?

    --
    "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
    1. Re:Which is it? by The+MESMERIC · · Score: 1

      What about when OTHERS put information about you - without your consent?

    2. Re:Which is it? by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      You gave those OTHERS that information.

      Secrets are things you don't tell other people.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    3. Re:Which is it? by The+MESMERIC · · Score: 1

      No you didn't.

      They grabbed it without asking.

      Google Street View, Enemies Gossiping, CCTVs, medical records leaked, photos of you without asking, stolen database information (not internet damn could be even HOTEL BOOKINGS, CREDIT CARDS), year of graduation,

      you don't even need to ever own a computer or use the internet to have your information and privacy plundered from you and fed to countless databases and finally the internet.

  23. Stupid phrasing by JakeD409 · · Score: 2, Informative

    companies such as Google should allow the data to degrade over time

    Phrasing like this pisses me off. If Google's data degraded over time, it's not that they'd be "allowing" it to degrade, they'd have to do extra work and write extra code to force it to degrade. Saying "allow" implies that degrading is what data do naturally, and that Google is somehow artificially preserving it.

    1. Re:Stupid phrasing by The+MESMERIC · · Score: 2, Informative

      But Google is ARTIFICIALLY preserving it.
      It is called PageRank. It strengthens OVER time.

      (Damn I give up!)

  24. What? by JeremyDuffy · · Score: 1

    This advice doesn't make sense. Why should it degrade? They shouldn't record it in the first place! What private information do they need to "improve their service"? If they don't sell our personal data, then they shouldn't record it!

    --
    Informing people about the scams, shams, and bunk that assault them on a daily basis. http://www.jeremyduffy.com
    1. Re:What? by The+MESMERIC · · Score: 1

      One of the reasons:

      Because some people have been accused of crimes they did NOT commit.

      The news went viral. Blogs, forums, web news won't bother removing the article.

      Their names have been tarnished - forever. And there is nothing they can do about it.

      So I see this as a good thing. If a person is guilty he should be in Jail.

      Another reason:

      Because we grow up, because we may do things we regret. Say trolling or posting a pic of someone in an embarrassing situation - pretty unfairly.

      The internet shouldn't be some sort of permanent Karma DB, it is believe it or not simply a media channel, for entertainment and information.

      If past stuff gets permanently locked in it could be widely abused; by employers, by the governments, by companies, by blackmailer - damn by criminals even. We will lose our freedom to err and learn. And everything would be in place for a Big Brother society to finally become.

    2. Re:What? by The+MESMERIC · · Score: 1

      One more reason:

      Because some data is wrong fixed and is consistently overwriting over the present one.

      Take Google Maps for Example.

      It sometimes add companies (automatically), damn even HOSPITALS with older details.

      The secretaries, even managers are very clueless how to go about fixing this.

      You can't contact Google, try - there is no support.

      They are made to feel guilty, but damn it was Google that picked an old information (of 3 years back) and put it on #1 for that Hospital.

      That OLD data gets fed back into many directories, which in turn gets passed to many health websites. Virally.

      Again with no intervention or intention of the said Hospital.

      Now of Data were to degrade 'graciously' then Google should then automatically assume the NEW PHONE NUMBER precedes over the OLD PHONE NUMBER (of 3 years ago).

      So stuff like that.

      By degrading it may not even necessarily mean - data should disappear completely, but the older the data - the further it should recede to the back of the queue.

      In my view, that is fair and necessary.

      Damn folks, are most people here so blind? I am reading many of the comments. This is so scary. It's like pre-fascism the way your minds are so inclined; you only need a leader - and then you complain about China and Australia.

    3. Re:What? by JeremyDuffy · · Score: 1

      Let me say this again more clearly, why should it degrade when instead they shouldn't have any of your data IN THE FIRST PLACE. You don't have to degrade what you don't have.

      --
      Informing people about the scams, shams, and bunk that assault them on a daily basis. http://www.jeremyduffy.com
  25. i think the best argument should be by shnull · · Score: 1

    that the value of 'personal data' degrades automatically over time. people change, interests fade quickly, data like that is probably useless after one week in this add stressed out world

    --
    beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
  26. how about a real delete in gmail by Sark666 · · Score: 1

    From what I read the delete forever doesn't necessarily delete from their servers. If I indicate delete forever I'd like to think it's you know, deleted forever