Who controls your data?

[feketegy]

As with web applications and even devices are getting smarter and smarter every day I'm getting concerned that who will control my online data and how this entity will use it.

To mention some of the technologies today:

iPhone 3G GPS geo targetting, there are applications that gather data about your location.

Semantic search. By simply searching for a name, username, e-mail address the search engine can cross reference that information, theoretically it could know your adress, city, country you live in, which restaurants you frequent, etc.

My question is that is there any legal entity that controls how third party services could use your data?

[ro0bear]

in the UK at least all organisations must obide by the data protection act, which says that organisations must take "reasonable" precautions to protect theft of your data, and that an organisation cannot pass your data to third parties without your consent.

[Dan Grossman]

But with the internet being global, no, there is no legal entity that controls how all third party websites use your data.

[BlazeMiskulin]

I get into this debate with my business partner all the time. He keeps pointing out services, plug-ins, etc. that do what I need. I go look at them, only to find out that they would need to hold my data on their servers. I run a web-hosting company... why would I put my data on someone else's servers? Servers over which I have no control or oversight.

Most people never even bother to read the EULAs which state--quite blatantly--that the "service" claims ownership of any data (including documents and photos) which you place on their servers.

[johnyboy]

there's a useful book on this kind of thing: the future of the internet and how to stop it http://www.amazon.com/Future-Interne.../dp/0300124872 . well written thorough book which hints at some reasonable sollutions. the main drive of the book is that there are now serious enough problems on the internet which need dealing with. the usual, procastination approach which, do and stipulate as little as possible is in general a very good course but you can't procrastinate all the time. an example of this procrastination: tcp/ip itself; minimum decisions embedded in it. let other people decide. it's that kind of thing which results in *generativity*. that is the thing the author wants to protect. and by putting off dealing with issues, procrastination stylie, now, some of the serious things, will result in the laws/powers that be imposing things which may stop the problems but will also stop the good thing about the internet: protecting generativity is the underlying drive behind the book, and the fact that certain issues do need dealing with, so the procrasitination principle isn't good enough.

he suggests some possible useful directions, involving a kind of community effort (both implementation of initial mechanisms which allow participation in the sollution, and for less technically minded people just making use/participating in the set up mechanisms), not easily explained by me here. just had a look at the book's site, the book is available for download http://futureoftheinternet.org/ search for star wars kid in it and read round there for his take on this kind of thing:

Semantic search. By simply searching for a name, username, e-mail address the search engine can cross reference that information, theoretically it could know your adress, city, country you live in, which restaurants you frequent, etc.

> Who controls your data?

we should ouselves, but we're not in a position where we can do that easily or at all at the moment because of lack of set up mechanisms.