Being an Ex-Microsoftie I have some knowledge about dogfood and MS. Microsoft operates as many small semi-autonomous units, as such there is desire/room for the individual group to use the best products and tools for their project. The preference is to dog food ms products as much as possible (as seen by the many attempts to switch hotmail). However if a MS product is clearly inappropriate, they will choose what is appropriate, and feedback to the product group what they need, and why they chose an alternate product.
As far as acquisitions go (ala Hotmail, and bCentral), it is certainly not easy to port software from one system to another, especially when there is a mess of dependencies and spaghetti code. I have written many an app, and porting to the alternate OS/web platform is less than trivial, and always introduces many bugs.
If IIS wasn't good enough for hotmail on try one, MS fixes IIS and tries again. This is a great benefit to people who are on the MS platform and should be regarded as such. Everytime MS is not dogfooding, you should assume they plan on switching to the MS equivalent product, and the MS product becomes better. Better MS products is potentially bad for competition (hehe), but is much better for all MS customers (read 90% of the known universe. Work in an office? What version of Word are you using?;)).
You are absoulutely correct. Trying to extort information from people gives you a load of bunk. But there if there is a value exchange you are more likely to divulge that information (you recieve value by giving said information). If you are looking for a movie showing in your neighborhood on a site you frequent, how nice that they remember your zip code.
Personalization can only exist if you divulge information. And personalization is worth it. In the land of not-aol, not-yahoo, not-msn, there is just too much information, too many sites. If you dont want an editorial perspective or "programming", you need a mechanism to navigate the anarchy. Slashdot does this wonderfully for me. It filters out all the noise, by collecting ratings (which in some strange paranoid way, can show the interests of individuals and allow them to hunt you down and kill you, since you always bump up articles against MS).
The P3P was created to enforce a value exchange between individuals and sites, to allow for safe personalization. It was created so that there is a mechanism of informed consent before divulging information, so that one clearly knows why they are being asked for their coveted data, and how it will be used.
Without initiatives like the P3P we are left with extortion. And then government intervention. As internet professionals, we either try to create ways to protect our privacy online, or allow the government to attempt to do it for us. And with all the noise of "save the children", I guarantee the government will be more stern that most would like.
We are slowly moving forward on the privacy front (still years behind europe). Remember a few years back, there was no such thing as a privacy policy. Then everyone wrote a bunch of unread legaleze and called it a day. Now people are advocating human readable (short and in plain english) privacy policies, which informed consent principle of the P3P is premised on.
Propose something better, instead of just trashing. And keep in mind that the population is filled with real people not power geeks. There is always the tradeoff between convenience and security/privacy. And most people will go for convenience. This is a first good step for convenient and private. Let's here some alternatives.
We know better, sure. . . we also dont care to care. So why should my mother, really care to care. Security is defined as the state of being or "feeling" secure. The operative word is feeling secure. My mother does not want her credit card to go into the hands of a crook. So she gives it whenever she feels secure. It doesnt matter that the phone line can be tapped, she gives her number to the man on the ohter line. This is but an example of why it don't matter. This is but an example of why no one cares.
There are lots of security freaks, who dont do anything without encryption. I dont care so much what someone knows as long as it doesnt "appear" to impede me. If i feel secure and can do what I want to when I want, then I'm using that service. It is not an issue of education mom & pop. My mother would never have used a computer if not for aol. she will not bother with learning about windows let alone UNIX. Education is not the solution for large scale computer use, simplicity is. And there is where the true war is fought, ease of use and usefulness vs security and well designed. Shareware products tend to be much better designed and more secure, but Microsloth and AOHell tend to make more usable products no matter how lousy they are. Instead of trying to educate the masses, we as the development community should work on making highly usable and useful products for mom and pop.
Slashdot Mirror
Being an Ex-Microsoftie I have some knowledge about dogfood and MS. Microsoft operates as many small semi-autonomous units, as such there is desire/room for the individual group to use the best products and tools for their project. The preference is to dog food ms products as much as possible (as seen by the many attempts to switch hotmail). However if a MS product is clearly inappropriate, they will choose what is appropriate, and feedback to the product group what they need, and why they chose an alternate product.
;)).
As far as acquisitions go (ala Hotmail, and bCentral), it is certainly not easy to port software from one system to another, especially when there is a mess of dependencies and spaghetti code. I have written many an app, and porting to the alternate OS/web platform is less than trivial, and always introduces many bugs.
If IIS wasn't good enough for hotmail on try one, MS fixes IIS and tries again. This is a great benefit to people who are on the MS platform and should be regarded as such. Everytime MS is not dogfooding, you should assume they plan on switching to the MS equivalent product, and the MS product becomes better. Better MS products is potentially bad for competition (hehe), but is much better for all MS customers (read 90% of the known universe. Work in an office? What version of Word are you using?
You are absoulutely correct. Trying to extort information from people gives you a load of bunk. But there if there is a value exchange you are more likely to divulge that information (you recieve value by giving said information). If you are looking for a movie showing in your neighborhood on a site you frequent, how nice that they remember your zip code.
Personalization can only exist if you divulge information. And personalization is worth it. In the land of not-aol, not-yahoo, not-msn, there is just too much information, too many sites. If you dont want an editorial perspective or "programming", you need a mechanism to navigate the anarchy. Slashdot does this wonderfully for me. It filters out all the noise, by collecting ratings (which in some strange paranoid way, can show the interests of individuals and allow them to hunt you down and kill you, since you always bump up articles against MS).
The P3P was created to enforce a value exchange between individuals and sites, to allow for safe personalization. It was created so that there is a mechanism of informed consent before divulging information, so that one clearly knows why they are being asked for their coveted data, and how it will be used.
Without initiatives like the P3P we are left with extortion. And then government intervention. As internet professionals, we either try to create ways to protect our privacy online, or allow the government to attempt to do it for us. And with all the noise of "save the children", I guarantee the government will be more stern that most would like.
We are slowly moving forward on the privacy front (still years behind europe). Remember a few years back, there was no such thing as a privacy policy. Then everyone wrote a bunch of unread legaleze and called it a day. Now people are advocating human readable (short and in plain english) privacy policies, which informed consent principle of the P3P is premised on.
Propose something better, instead of just trashing. And keep in mind that the population is filled with real people not power geeks. There is always the tradeoff between convenience and security/privacy. And most people will go for convenience. This is a first good step for convenient and private. Let's here some alternatives.
There are lots of security freaks, who dont do anything without encryption. I dont care so much what someone knows as long as it doesnt "appear" to impede me. If i feel secure and can do what I want to when I want, then I'm using that service. It is not an issue of education mom & pop. My mother would never have used a computer if not for aol. she will not bother with learning about windows let alone UNIX. Education is not the solution for large scale computer use, simplicity is. And there is where the true war is fought, ease of use and usefulness vs security and well designed. Shareware products tend to be much better designed and more secure, but Microsloth and AOHell tend to make more usable products no matter how lousy they are. Instead of trying to educate the masses, we as the development community should work on making highly usable and useful products for mom and pop.