attention data
Feb 26, 2006, 05:53pm EST
Point 3 of 16 from Thinking in Web 2.0:
Data belongs to those that create it. Yes, you heard me. Everything a user creates, contributes, or shares is theirs, unless they have given away the right explicitly and by free choice. Any information they contribute to the Web should be editable, deleteable, unshareable by the contributor whenever they feel like it. This also means indirect data like their attention records, log entries, navigation history, site trails, or anything else that might be tracked. And all Web sites must clearly and simply state what information a user is creating and give them a way to stop creating it and even clean up.
To which I have to say, bollocks.
The problem with this is that it views the web as a repository for information that people put data into. A better view of the web is to consider it a conversation between the user and the web.
For example, if I go to Amazon and browse around looking at various music recommendations, that’s no different than me walking into Amoeba Records and talking with the sales staff about similar music. To claim that one should be able to edit, delete or unshare information with Amazon after the fact is like saying that I should be able to erase a conversation with Amoeba’s sales staff.
Or suppose I got visit someone else’s blog and post a comment. Ten minutes later I decide that I want to retract my comment. While it’s nice of sites to allow me to retract the comment [1], the blog owner should have some say in the decision. The comment I posted is part of a conversation with the blog owner and we both have a stake in it.
Attention information exists in the physical world too. It exists in surveillance videos, fingerprints or DNA evidence, and in the memories of everyone who sees me. I’m not able to erase all my tracks and it seems silly to suggest that I should be able to require a store owner to erase my DNA trail for me. If it really bothers me, then I’ll stop going out in public.
This is the tradeoff we make when we use the web. Sure, Amazon is going to follow me through the site and aggregate the information with other users to provide smart suggestions to me, but I’m also getting value from Amazon. They’re providing me with a convenient way to buy goods. If I don’t want them to know about my browsing habits, I’m not going to demand that they let me delete it from their servers, I’m simply going to go somewhere else.
[1] This is an illusion anyway. Odds are the comment still exists in other places such as a web archive, an email sent to the blog owner, or in random people’s browser cache.
Brandon at Feb 27, 2006, 10:36am EST
Bravo! I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I was just having this argument with a cow-orker, and I have forwarded the very eloquent case you made here along to him. The crux of my case was the “if you don’t like it, don’t use it” point, but I love your analogy of the conversation over the repository. Thanks a lot, Tony!
DC at Feb 27, 2006, 02:59pm EST
I certainly agree with you. That’s why I have this constant low-level fear that what I say on the internet will come back to haunt me. It’s just a little crazy to think that something you put out into public is going to remain under your control.
On the other hand, I do think it is important for websites (et cetera) to be upfront about what is happening. It’s not good to think that something you’re doing is private when it isn’t. People say things like “they should know”, but I think that’s a load of crap. How would someone know if nobody tells them? It isn’t common sense to think that doubleclick knows every website you visited today. Why would it be? You’ve never even heard of doubleclick.
tony at Feb 28, 2006, 01:19am EST
That’s true, some tactics for gathering usage data borders on spyware and having a privacy policy is still good practice.
Mihai at Feb 27, 2006, 11:46pm EST
I pretty much agree with you, the righteousness of the attention people gets on my nerves. However, it’s still nice to see that we’re letting users get at some of their click data, so that they can play with it:
http://persistent.info/archives/2006/02/24/search-history-rss
tony at Feb 28, 2006, 01:14am EST
Yeah, it’s definitely nice when sites make it easier to harvest your own attention data.
While I doubt the attention trust people will be able to leverage payment out of attention data, I think there will be lots of room for personal use (zeitgeists, mash ups, etc).
Nikolas Coukouma at Mar 12, 2006, 04:06pm EST
I have to note that P3P is designed to facilitate conversations about data collection. It’s basically a machine-readable format for privacy formats; so your browser could (at least hypothetically) warn you when you’re visiting a site that’s doing things you don’t like with your data.
Neil at Apr 12, 2006, 12:20am EDT
Tony, your response is also congruent with the legal concepts of “expectation of privacy” and “consent”. One could say that there is very little expectation of privacy when one walks out in public - and perhaps the same can be said for spreading one’s digital tracks across internet servers. Similarly, by engaging a website, there is a form of implied consent
Finally, as you well know, your converations idea is more than a metaphor, it is a reality. HTTP requests and responses are what make the web work.