Re: [projectvrm] Ownership of information

[Matthew Blass < >]

This thread has really been insightful, thought provoking, and very interesting. I definitely agree with what Mitch and Mark have said in that I personally hope VRM is more than just another way for me to be a consumer. While, I'd appreciate changes in my options for interacting with vendors and getting goods and services from them, I think VRM can be, and is, more inspiring than continuing to feed the consumerist culture.

The question of ownership is very interesting because I have a feeling that is what sparked the concept of VRM where corporations and their silos appear to own your data, owning really just being controlling (as Mark was saying) as they can buy and sell it without your consent or much benefit to yourself. So, to "combat" this ever pervasive situation, the quick answer is flipping the equation. However, ownership online, especially with information even of oneself, is an illusion; once it's out in the wild, there's little regard to your objections.

What I´m trying to find out is what kind of existing or evolving standard or something which still has to be defined, can give me some control on the flow of information to, from and about me.

The first step to controlling any flow of information is knowing what already exists. As a company can't manage the good and bad things being said about it without first knowing what's being said, you can't "control" your information if you don't know who's dealing in it (think anything propaganda from corporate PR to military intelligence). So, the company and you start with a search to collect all the valid sources. Then you monitor these places, so you can manage the use of your information, which probably means less controlling it, and more likely correcting and directing the information ("No, I'm not allergic to peanuts, but I still don't like them. Cashews are my favorite"). However, few people are OCD enough to actually want to search themselves, collect that information, store it, and actively manage any of it outside of a few very  specific occasions.

I want a personal google. Something that crawls the web looking for me, collecting these pieces of information, and helping me organize them. That seems like the first practical step in being able to control my information. Additionally, it also needs to crawl Amazon, eBay, Netflix, and such for my personal information, so it needs to be able to log into those silos to extract that information. And it needs to understand that I exist online as 5 or 6 (probably more) personas from my blog/facebook/myspace accounts to comments on other blogs, forums, et al. to purchases at stores.

Once that's complete, though, all I really need are RSS feeds from these places sending me updates on the thing I know I'm doing, like buying another book or renting another movie. In doing that, I reduce the costs of collecting, and organizing that information, which gives me the control I need to manage it all. From there, I might pass some more back to a specific source that may have originated from another source, ie. Netflix sharing my preferences with Amazon because I've collected it from Netflix, and shared it with Amazon. If I have a personal google, then Netflix doesn't have to open up to me, as I can robotically extract it, but Amazon does have to open up its CRM or whatever system for my input.

It seems to me that information is less about controlling and more about managing. In the situations that matter to me, I need to have the tools to become the middle man. In practical terms, that means that I need the abilities to collect, store, organize, and redistribute my information. You could probably invent a tool in each area that was independent of the others (probably the only optimal and efficient option), but until you have all of those, you can't really achieve a complete VRM solution.

Matt

On Oct 15, 2007, at 1:45 PM, Joerg Resch wrote:

I needed a bit longer to think about a reply to Mitch´s reaction on my note about ownership, because I intended it to be more a practical contribution to defining the context in which my “digital autonomy” may be raised through VRM tools and services. I did not intend to shake the fundaments of capitalism. Although, Habermas (who was born in my neighbourhood over here in Duesseldorf), having joined Marx´ materialism with the American way of pragmatism might even be worth looking into, but still is far away from what we discuss here.

What I´m trying to find out is what kind of existing or evolving standard or something which still has to be defined, can give me some control on the flow of information to, from and about me. In a digital world, ownership is not a concept which helps me answering this question. If I for example had a CRM and created some record called Mitch Ratcliffe with some information I collect through Internet, enrich them with assumptions on his personal preferences, and sell that record to some Apple stores – it is not relevant for me wether I own this information or not, because I sell it anyway and it´s not illegal and it´s done every day. And for you, Mitch, it´s not relevant as well, because you don´t even know about it.

But the results of such information brokerage will most probably not meet your needs as good as if you were the one who expressed them yourself and made them available together with some rights definition on how that information flow from you to that future marketplace is mediated.

There has been discussion on similar concepts before. I remember a project about agent mediated commerce I was dealing with nearly a decade ago and it was all about finding a way to match Demand and Supply through some marketplace which is owned by nobody. It was too early then.