Privacy,

what animal is this?

March 17th , 2013, 06:25 PM By Ricardo Murer B.S. in Computer Science (USP) and Master's Degree in Communications and Arts (USP). Expert in digital strategy and new technologies. Follow@rdmurer

Among the most magnificent animals in this planet, the tiger is undoubtedly one of them, and we can say that Javan tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica) is one of the most beautiful species. Its habitat, the Java Island in Indonesia, is one of the places where the presence of man has done severe damage. As a consequence, this situation promoted the extinction of this beauteous animal. Since 1993, no scientist has been able to find any trace of the Javan tiger presence. Extinct! Our life, specially the course of our day, can be understood as a succession of events. From the moment we awaken, until late at night when we returned to our bedroom, we think, act, talk with friends and publish. This last activity is a recent phenomenon, a result not only from the social Internet which requires each of us the update almost daily from our "virtual self", but also the dramatic changes that occur on the computing devices, making them mobile and ubiquitous (or pervasive). In fact, we live in a time of hyper-visibility. To Andrew Keen: In this transparent world, we are at the same time everywhere and nowhere, the absolute unreality is a real presence. The social networks and the new sharing technologies lead us to open the book of our lives without restriction, without limits, all the time. We lost quite a sense of what is personal and what is public. Everything can and should be shared for the good of the new social wave, that is to say the good of the advertisers on the social networks who need to know our lives details to post contextualized ads according to our profile and personal preferences. Not coincidentally, Dan Fletcher wrote that Facebook is changing our social DNA, making us more accustomed to transparency. The question is: what is its price? For the large virtual companies, the social networks owners, we are consumers, without great illusions, this is what we are. And considering we need always to look healthy, happy, well-traveled and cool, we became ourselves goods. In this sense, it is nice to look at the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, for whom in a society of
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I just knew at an early time in my life how important privacy was. Daniel Day-Lewis (Actor ingls 1957 - )

consumers we are led to become "salable commodities, increasing our value from our profiles construction, often artificial, so we can always be good in front of our audience, virtual or not. In this new virtual social game, we are leaving behind, especially the new digital generation, the privacy. However, we are not being "coerced" to give up our privacy. The culture or current cyberculture, media-driven, influenced by a frantic search for visibility (the celebrity cult, for example) leads us to ignore through and through our right to preserve our identity, the particular events of our lives and often our moments of solitude. If formerly the identification mechanisms hurt the privacy of the individual (modern, romantic and introspective) and they were felt as a real invasion, the wide adherence to social networks seems to testify, in the late modernity, the cooling of the I feeling on the profiles and avatars publicized in the media instances from the cyberspace visibility. [Dal Bello, 2011] So, when the issue is to preserve the privacy, mine, yours and the others cyber- citizens, we live, in fact, a paradox within the realm of social networks. Considering that the current business model from the social networks is anchored (almost 100%) in contextualized advertising media, based on personal information provided by the users consumers/goods, there is no way to prevent the companies which sustain the social networks make use of the users information. The greater the amount of data, the more personal information the social networks have access about you, the more "precise" and "effective" will be the advertising and the business profitability. This is the logic. Thus, in order to have all the benefits from the social networks era, we need to give up our privacy, spontaneously or not. Privacy, what animal is this? Privacy is the capability and the right that we have on control the information about ourselves. In some way, this is our right living in society as an anonymous. However, privacy goes further, because it also exists to ensure that personal information, once shared with an organization, are not used, sold or distributed without permission. But, apparently, we are happy with the fact that we live in a virtual world without walls, with the doors and the windows of our lives wide open, emotions, relationships, consumption habits and everything. The social networks say that they are doing their part by promoting privacy policies, which must be configured by the user. However, any user who has experienced configure your privacy in the social networks realize how difficult is this task. In the course of time, Facebook, Orkut and other social networks has increased the amount of items and offered many options in their privacy policies, which are confusing and demand time to be proper setup. As noted by Dal Bello: "As a result, it is obvious that their privacy policies are becoming increasingly complex in order to ensure the commercial exploitation of informational subjective resources, and to cover them from the responsibility for any problems that individuals can have since they are more open and connected. [Dal Bello, 2011]
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We all want to live fully this new virtual wave, using frantically smartphones and gadgets to share photos, videos and texts. Who wants to leave the virtual spotlights? In fact, many of us will only discover the value of privacy when they have lost it. The privacy is also associated to security and vigilance, and once we have lost control over our personal information, who will make use of them and for what purpose? I do not believe the path is to eliminate completely our virtual presence; even there is the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine to do this. But if we continue ad infinitum sustaining the social networks and other Web 2.0 tools with our personal information, a time will come where large virtual corporations, companies and governments will know everything about us. I am thinking about taking a trip to Indonesia. Someone told me that privacy inhabits the Java island. Unfortunately, some years ago, it is in the list of endangered animals. References BAUMAN, Z. Vida para Consumo A transformao das pessoas em mercadorias. Zahar Editora, Rio de Janeiro, 2008. BAUMAN, Z. Amor Lquido. Zahar Editora, Rio de Janeiro 2004. CAMPBELL, R., AL-MUHTADI J., NALDURG P., SAMPEMANEL G. and MICKUNAS M. D. Towards security and privacy for pervasive computing. In Proceedings of International Symposium on Software Security, Tokyo, Japan, 2002. DAL BELLO, C. Visibilidade, vigilncia, identidade e indexao: a questo da privacidade nas redes sociais digitais. O Estatuto da Cibercultura no Brasil. Vol.34, N 01, 1 semestre 2011. FLETCHER, D. How Facebook is redefining privacy. Time. 20 mai. 2010. Disponvel em: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1990582-1,00.html. Acesso em: 1 maro de 2013. GUHA S., TANG K. and FRANCIS P. NOYB: Privacy in onlinesocial networks. In WOSN, 2008 KADUSHIN, C. Understanding social networks: Theories, concepts, and findings. Oxford University Press, USA, 2011. KEEN, A. Vertigem digital Porque as redes sociais esto nos dividindo, diminuindo e desorientando. Zahar Editora, Rio de Janeiro, 2012. NARAYANAN, A., SHMATIKOV, V. De-anonymizing Social Networks. 30th IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy, 2009.
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PARISER, E. O Filtro Invisvel O que a internet est escondendo de voc. Zahar Editora, Rio de Janeiro, 2012. Notes Ubiquitous or pervasive computing This new technology provides a world where embedded processors, sensors and digital communications are commodities of insignificant cost, therefore, will be available everywhere. This eliminates barriers of time and place, making computing services available to their users anytime and anywhere. [Campbell, 2002] For theology, ubiquity is the divine faculty of being present everywhere concomitantly. The Obama Administration today unveiled a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights as part of a comprehensive blueprint to improve consumers privacy protections and ensure that the Internet remains an engine for innovation and economic growth. The blueprint will guide efforts to give users more control over how their personal information is used on the Internet and to help businesses maintain consumer trust and grow in the rapidly changing digital environment. At the request of the White House, the Commerce Department will begin convening companies, privacy advocates and other stakeholders to develop and implement enforceable privacy policies based on the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. In 1995, the Brussels-based European Union (EU) passed a comprehensive data privacy law called the European Union Directive on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data. In Brazil, Article 5, X, of the Republican Constitution says that are inviolable intimacy, private life, honor and personal images, guaranteeing the right to compensation for property or moral damages resulting from the violation. Java tiger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javan_tiger Facebooks Privacy Policy - http://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/. Last update: December 11th, 2012.