Reciprocal data

a recent TechCrunch article sugggests one can import their Facebook contact personal email addresses using Yahoo.

This is a picture of someone's dog. I doesn't have anything to do with the post, but blogs always have some clip art and I think it's a nice looking dog.

I just tried it and it didn't work. But I like the article for point out the lack of reciprocal data inherent in these service models. Wouldn't it be fair, since they're collecting it, if we could access all that collected data that they're collecting anyway? You can bulk download all your Facebook contact in one big zip (though this wasn't available to me last time I checked), but why not be able to see who's accessing your pages, and where our likes are being published (Microsoft search results, among other places).

Let's carry this a little further. If you have an internet service provider or use a mobile handset, they have access to massive amounts of information about you. All the web sites you visit, all that unencrypted email, even where you are. People often talk about "smart fridges" that know what's in them, imagining people labourings scanning oranges as they input them, but why not just access your latest grocery receipt electronically, if not online through a points program?

This is all part of embracing invasion of privacy to mutual advantage, which has many drawbacks, but it seems inevitable.

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Blikied on Nov 13, 2010