[Data-modeling] Privacy, public figures, etc

[Kirrily Robert]

----- "Christopher R. Maden" <crism at metaweb.com> wrote:
> Advocatus diaboli:
> 
> “You have zero privacy anyway.  Get over it.” — Scott McNealy, CEO,
> Sun
> Microsystems, 25 January 1999; <URL:
> http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1999/01/17538 >.
> 
> David Brin, _The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to
> Choose
> Between Privacy and Freedom?_, 1998; <URL:
> http://www.davidbrin.com/tschp1.html > (winner, Obeler Freedom of
> Speech
> Award, American Library Association).
> 
> ~Chris, a Public Person, definitely not speaking for Metaweb here

You know, personally I agree with you.  I'm a pretty open person, and you can find out all sorts of stuff about me because I've been keeping online journals and posting to Usenet and archived mailing lists and using Twitter and Dopplr and Flickr and $DEITY knows what else since sometime in the early 90s.  I long ago gave up on any privacy I might have, and I tend to think that anyone else who hasn't done so is just behind the curve and will get there eventually ;)

I think it's important for us to communicate well about privacy.  We need to make it really clear to people that information in Freebase is not only visible on the website, but also API-accessible.  The aggregation of data through the API makes for another level beyond what people might be used to, so it's vital that we make that really clear.  

If you look at privacy dramas on the Internet, they tend to fall into two categories: "Companies are evil" and "Users are dumb".  The difference is around disclosure and reasonable expectations.  If a company says "we will never disclose your private details" and then does, then they're bastards.  If a company says "We will publish this data in detail or aggregate", and then users are surprised when it happens, well, that means they're idiots.  But let's face it, not everyone reads the small print in the Terms of Service, so I think in Freebase's case, where making data available is the whole *point* of the thing, it behooves us to put it front and centre.  We have a number of ways we can do this, ranging from FAQs to the "Find it!" examples on the homepage to the way we highlight apps on our blog.  So hopefully if we do it right, there won't be too many nasty surprises for anyone.

As for how we'll handle unwanted privacy invasions when person A types person B as a "public person" and then discloses their weight, religion, political affiliation, or mother's maiden name... well I see that as a special case of what happens when A types B as a war criminal or sets their profession to "whore" or uploads goatse as the person's photo.  And you can bet all those things happen on Wikipedia and will eventually happen to us.  I've got some other thoughts on content guidelines which I should probably raise in another thread, but I suspect the answer will be -- as it is elsewhere on the interwebs -- a combination of openness, community vigilance, and handy tools for reverting or locking down contentious topics.

K.

-- 
Kirrily Robert
Freebase Community Director
kirrily at metaweb.com