Privacy. It has become “hot topic” as number of people who use social networking tools grows and it seems that it will be so for a while.

Recent case, provoking a protest storm across the internet, is about Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder. According to Mark Zuckerberg, privacy is no longer a social norm. (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/3848950)

So, should we get over it? Really?

Look, what did Zuckerberg say:

“People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time. We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.”

Have the current social norms really evolved? Someone had better remind Zuckerberg that being social and sharing openly are not being naked* on the net ( naked on the net : to be visible with all his/her private information)

Numbers tell us different story about that social norm : http://fstutzman.com/2009/03/09/ny-times-botches-sns-privacy/

Michael Zimmer, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who has done extensive research on social media, said Zuckerberg’s comments seemed calculated to make users and advertisers feel more at ease with sharing online. That’s the world he wants, so he makes statements to make it seem as if it is true. Social-Network sites need users to share information, and any attempts to limit that sharing is contrary to SNS business models.” (http://www.crm-daily.com/story.xhtml?story_id=13000005HZQC)

Is privacy a social norm of the past as more people use social networking tools?

End of Privacy or Time for Privacy?

For whom the bell tolls?

Of course,  The bell tolls for you.

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Anyway, share and drink responsibly and dream of a warm country :)

When a law or policy draft process related to the internet or communication takes place in public, the question “What about the common/individual rights” comes to mind. But, this time, the process is not open to public. It is a little bit secret for some reason or other. What we are talking about is Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement(ACTA).

What is it? The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral trade agreement for establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement.(Wikipedia – ACTA)

At the end of 2007, the United States, the European Community, Switzerland, and Japan announced the launch of ACTA. Since mid-2008, the Australia, Canada, the European Union, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates and maybe some other countries have been negotiating that trade treaty (ACTA) in a secret manner.

ACTA signatory countries say that they need improved international standards for actions against the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works. Secrecy in the process leads to us thinking of that they knew people would speak out against ACTA. Seemingly, the goal of ACTA treaty is to adapt copyright to the digital age. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t important details like anti-file sharing and net-filtering policies. There are.

There have been a lot of criticism since some leaked draft documents are available on the internet. Main concerns are secrecy of negotiations, legal scope, privacy and threat to free software.

“Although the proposed treaty’s title might suggest that the agreement deals only with counterfeit physical goods (such as medicines), what little information has been made available publicly by negotiating governments about the content of the treaty makes it clear that it will have a far broader scope, and in particular, will deal with new tools targeting ‘Internet distribution and information technology’ “Free Software Foundation(FSF) says in its “Speak out against ACTA” campaign.

La Quadrature du Net, an advocacy group that promotes the rights and freedoms of citizens on the Internet, criticizes ACTA from democratic process and internet neutrality perspectives:

“At a time when important debates are taking place on the need to adapt copyright to the digital age, this treaty would bypass democratic processes in order to enforce a fundamentally irrelevant regulatory regime. It would profoundly alter the very nature of the Internet as we know it by putting an end to Net neutrality“

Last week, Eddan Katz and Gwen Hinze from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is the leading civil liberties group defending rights in the digital world, published an essay on ACTA in the Yale Law Journal of International Law Online. Their approach to ACTA is not just focused on civil liberties but democratic accountability, transparency, impact on knowledge economy, internet and innovation. From the essay :

“…IP enforcement isolated from innovation policy ignores the legal flexibility that enables information technology to emerge, obstructs access to knowledge, and threatens citizens’ civil liberties.”

“The confidentiality rationale fails most significantly from a public policy perspective. Transparency is necessary for balanced policymaking that serves the needs of all stakeholders in the knowledge economy.”

“…It will also restrict the global flow of information by regulating, and potentially criminalizing, the next generation of innovative network technologies…

I am not a citizen of ACTA signatory countries but I know that this kind of agreement will be a starting point for future [inter]national agreements/regulations. If you are a citizen of signatory countries, you can “speak out against ACTA” before 2010.

http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/acta/

Have a nice day,