Those whom I speak with on a regular basis knows that I care pretty deeply about my privacy. In fact, much of what I’ve been doing (as well as much of my recent behaviour) has been driven by my current stance about online privacy.

And what is this ‘stance’, you may ask…

Well, it’s simple. It’s also been reiterated time and again by those more well-known and more influential than I (not to mention that they also write better). It’s this: the age of true privacy is over; now is the age when we must recognize that the best we can do is control and sculpt how the digital world records and stores our information and our thoughts. In short: Personal e-PR.

It’s probably a little more than that, actually. It’s about sculpting your online persona such that it’s personal, without being too personal. It’s letting the world see into your life, but not so much so that your lifestream is an open book. It’s ultimately having control of your personal information floodgate.

Isn’t that a doozy?

In all seriousness, this shouldn’t be a daunting task. Social networks and advertisers should be making this easy for you. However, this isn’t always the case. Corporations, afterall, are entities whose sole purpose is to increase value for shareholders, and for the most part, you are not a shareholder. In fact, many of us aren’t shareholders for these social networks and advertisers. We are, however, stakeholders in their products. So, shouldn’t we have a say in their business practices?

In actuality, I find a large majority of social networks and online advertising networks would rather promote their shareholder valued than take care of their user base. They try to subvert user rights through carefully crafted and overly obtuse EULAs or Terms and Conditions. They also try to mask their activity through layers of PR and other well-crafted ‘nice words’. These practices are underhanded and simply unjust. Needless to say, they must be stopped.

How can we possibly stop these nameless and faceless corporations, you may ask? Easy. Spread the word. Educate people about what companies are doing with your data. Read the EULAs. Show people PleaseRobMe.com. Essentially, make as much noise as possible and let the people decide. If you’re perfectly alright with your life as an open book, please do so, but know the risks. If you prefer to keep parts of your life private, then find out how you can do so. It really isn’t hard. Afterall, most of them have privacy settings you can tweak. The worst you can do is abandon it all.

Hell, I did. Facebook is dead to me.

In any case, please spend the time to think, organize your thoughts and act. Do this, not for me, but for you and your digital self.

Ciao, until next time.

scwleung