Announcing: Privacy 2.0

“Privacy 2.0 – Cleaning up the mess Web 2.0 left behind”

What is Privacy 2.0 you might ask? I’d like to start the explanation with a bit of background. Two years ago I founded a startup social network that was a mashup of Facebook, Myspace, Meetup and Yelp. We put together a solid team and embarked on a long journey of creating a “one of a kind” social platform. Without boring you with the details, I’ll just say that we spent two years and quite a bit of money analyzing current usage patterns, understanding the dynamics of the social networking world, and getting to know the top visionaries in the field on a personal level.

Social Networking is a subset of the Web 2.0 cloud, though in many respects it serves a perfect example of the open, sharing, and collaborative nature of “the new web”

While building the social network, I noticed a flaw in the Web 2.0 architecture. That flaw is the very core of Web 2.0’s foundation.

From Wikipedia:

the definition of Web 2.0 is as the latest trend in enhancing creativity,
information sharing, collaboration and functionality on the web, which has
spawned social networking sites, information sharing across multiple platforms,
etc.

This new wave of social tools is encouraging individuals to contribute what seems to be every aspect of their lives to the social cloud. You can tell the cloud who you are, where you live, where you eat, who your friends and family are, where you work, what you drive, where you have been and where you’re going.

The power of the social graph is amazing, and people are now able to share more and do more than ever before. Web 2.0 sites pushed the needle forward in a big way, but, privacy seems to have been an afterthought, by design. After all, how could you be social yet hide parts or all of your identity or activity? Naturally, that is counterproductive and had it been implemented early on it might have squashed Web 2.0 before it ever took off the ground (example: had Myspace introduced private profiles when it first launched, it would have had a much tougher time in getting user adoption).

But now that it has, a certain “participation” in the social cloud is downright expected in certain circles. Business professionals are expected to participate in LinkedIn, musicians are expected to participate in Myspace, and those who have a pulse are expected to be on Facebook. If you want to sell something, just put it up on Ebay or Craigslist, looking for a date? I challenge you to find a date faster or cheaper than online.

But, what if I’m a graphics designer who has a day job and wants to take small projects on the side? My colleagues are linked to me on LinkedIn so I cant post my private business as a reference, and if I don’t, potential clients will see I have a day job and might not want to work with me. Or what if I want to sell something on Craigslist quickly, but don’t want my phone number or email address to be displayed, indexed by Google, and seen by the world?

These are just small examples of a larger problem. How does one participate in the Social Cloud yet maintain a certain level of anonymity and privacy? Or at the very least, have better control over where your personal information ends up?

I’m sure many have done this, but do it again, Google your name. My guess, you’ll find at least one thing you didnt know was out there, or wish wasnt there to begin with. Some stupid blog comment you made in a moment of rage or a picture of you drunk and shirtless.

The problem
Web 2.0 has matured enough to take big brother out of the closet, shine a big light on him, and realize that users can participate fully in the social cloud yet still maintain a certain level of control of their privacy and anonymity.

Sure, individual platforms have security and privacy measures. But that’s not what Privacy 2.0 is about. Passwords, SSL, private profiles, they solve authentication & hacking problems, but they don’t help me protect my identity while posting on Craigslist or not having my Email address be sold to spammers.

Take for example the Facebook Beacon fiasco. Even if you give a social network your private information and expect that you have control over where it ends up, do you really? At the very least they use it to analyze your behavior patterns and make that available to advertisers.

Your information can be bought, sold, partially or in full and you won’t even know about it. Add to that the fact that many Web 2.0 platforms use distributed, cloud computing, with different data centers across the world, so your data is shipped across the wire from one part of the world to another, trusting that their IT infrastructure is bullet proof and your information will not fall into the wrong hands.

Defining Privacy 2.0

“Privacy 2.0 is the latest trend in identifying the potential privacy &
identity threats that are associated with Web 2.0 and spawning services and
tools to help mitigate the potential exposure for users of such
services.”

Putting my visionary goggles on, those companies can provide services such as virtual temporary phone numbers, virtual Email addresses, virtual credit cards, virtual bank account numbers, virtual anything.

Instead of giving out static information that gets posted on the web and can never again be altered or removed, Privacy 2.0 is about providing simple, disposable identifying data that is only good for as long as you want it to be. Credit monitoring and privacy protection firms such as LifeLock do a great job in trying to protect your REAL personal information, but what if you never had to give that out to begin with? What if you could give out information about yourself that can only be tracked to you by a link that you had control over? Don’t like whats out there? Cut the link and your anonymous again.

There are already a handful of Privacy 2.0 companies out there; Arzoola.com and OtherInbox.com are a few of them. Since Privacy 2.0 is in its infancy, each will have a handful of privacy protection and anonymity tools. In the long term, I see a consolidation of many services under one platform that can solve all privacy needs in the Web 2.0 world.

Until such time, I suggest you seek out Privacy 2.0 companies and try them out, its never too soon to protect your privacy and anonymity.

Privacy 2.0 - Hello world.