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Re: [projectvrm] [ PFIR ] Proposed California law requires site privacy polices not to exceed 8th grade language and 100 words


Chronological Thread 
  • From: Johannes Ernst < >
  • To: Doc Searls < >
  • Cc: Adrian Gropper < >, T-Rob < >, Drummond Reed < >, Alan Mitchell < >, Judi Clark < >, , mary hodder < >, Phil Wolff < >, Project VRM < >, Sean Bohan < >
  • Subject: Re: [projectvrm] [ PFIR ] Proposed California law requires site privacy polices not to exceed 8th grade language and 100 words
  • Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:41:49 -0800
Doc's post here has a lot of great insights in a very short amount of space.
Gotta applaud and comment ...

On Feb 15, 2013, at 12:47, Doc Searls
< >
wrote:

> If our personal clouds are Ford's, Microsoft's or Apple's, they aren't
> personal.

Yes!

> If they are personal, they are ours alone, just like our personal wealth
> holdings are ours alone, regardless of who or what we use for brokers and
> banks.

Until MF Global happened ... but let's hope that doesn't happen too often,
with money or personal data.

> One challenge of VRM is to make sure that "personal" is something we have,
> and not something provided to us.

They can be "provided" to us as long as we don't lose anything if we decide
to change providers or provide ourselves.

> There are natural allies and resources (e.g. free and open source software
> and dev communities) to call on and align with here.

Yes!

> Meanwhile, we are watching our freedoms marginalized as more and more stuff
> that used to be ours alone, on our personal devices, get sucked into "the
> cloud" and provided as subscription services.

Nothing wrong with subscription services either if they don't come with
lock-in:

I'm "subscribed" to a Maid service for my house, which "provides" cleaning
services, but if I don't like them any more, I can fire them today and hire
another subscription service, and my house will just as clean as before with
no downside for me.

> There are countless good rationalizations for this, and in the short and
> shallow run we go along with it and benefit from it. But the dangers lie
> deeper, as Adrian and T-Rob lay out below.

"rationalization" is a good way of looking at it. "Why do cloud users have
Stockholm syndrome?" would be a good question to ask?

> At issue, fundamentally, are dependencies. First, we should be able to
> depend on ourselves. Then, at the very least, services on which we run our
> personal stuff should be substitutable, like banks and brokers are
> substitutable.

Yep.

> This is not what most big companies want. They want to have exclusive
> services and control over customer options. Not in all cases, but in enough
> to comprise a norm.

I was thinking about this. I think it's how we were all brought up in the
technology world, but I don't think it is as true in other industries. One
wonders what would happen if somebody in IT actually competed on the basis of
openness and superior service, instead of lock-in.

> I could go several other directions here, but that's enough for now. The
> deck is stacked against us now, but not after we change the game. That's
> what VRM is about.

Yep.

Cheers,


Johannes.


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