Property, Privacy and the Web 2.0 Paradoxon

Posted by yseult on Feb 19, 2009 in Issues, The Odd Philosophical Question | 4 comments

We all satisfy our exhibitionist tendencies through the internet web 2.0, the social web. We give up our right to privacy in doing so, but the horror is great and the tears particularly bitter when someone takes us up on it.

The latest tornado of protest and rightful indignation that swept over the internet, the blogosphere and the entire western hemisphere (but thankfully didn’t manage to drop that proverbial sack of rice) concerning Facebook’s covert annexing of all their user’s datas and content from now on into eternity, is certainly an interesting jurisdictional case example. But apart from the power of the internet, the usergroups, the blogging community that managed to pressure Facebook to revert back to their old Terms of Service and consult their users before forcing their top-down changes, and apart from the usual observations that have after that flooded all the radio and online commentaries on how our society is circling the exibtionistic drain when everyone builds their online personality and streams their babies births online over ustream… apart from all that, there is a general question that begs to be asked here: what is intellectual property?

Through the history of thought there have been various theories on how the idea of personal property changed our view on reality and society as a whole. In Western History, the major change between the celtic tribal organisation where the common property of the clan was indicative of the standing of said clan towards a perception of personal property of land that represented wealth that was introduced by the Romans, hides an intellectual change. In later years, someone like Rousseau will go as far as to state that the introductioon of personal property by the colonisators in Southern America corrupted these societies forwever (cf. the Myth of the Good Savage).

The idea of intellectual property however is a relatively late conception in the history of ideas. It’s something that is completely absent in the Middle Ages for instance where authors copy motifs, characters and texts from one another at liberty since they are considered common property of their circle of culture. With the introduction of printing devices and the explosion of text production things change slightly, but the idea that an author has rights over the texts, ideas or even characters is still far away. As late as the 19th century, an author that had his works printed, sold his works and all rights over to the printer or editor.

The concept of owning something that is immaterial and that you’ve invented is one of the most difficult topics in a time where a simple manipulation of four keys copies text, annexes it, steals it, reproduces it.

Now, we all know that it’s part of our personal rights to chose when and how we want to be taken in pictures and that the gaining of money is an infringement of my rights. We also know that copying content that we haven’t ourselves produced is morally wrong and punishable by law per se, particularly so if we start making money from it.

Facebook thought it opportune to transfer an irrevocable license on all the contents their users upload to their (free) service, being free to reproduce it, sell it and mash it up (taking it out of context). Nothing in this world is for free and internet services that cost server space, hardware and time to set up and maintain are the least likely to be for free, no matter what. The reaction of Facebook users and bloggers is certainly justified and was needed, but ridiculous in it’s proportions of indignation. Not even to speak about the 99% of users that never read any of the TOS of the services they join.

Ridiculous? Like I said, nothing in the world is for free. And certainly not a site that needs to sustain itself to support 175 Million users such as Facebook. The question that needs asking is: what are you paying with? The same thing you’re paying Google for the greatest storage inbox on the net, the best Document storage online and the quickes and best indexing algorithms with: your personality. Your search patterns, your way of using the service, your statistical information constitute a huge flux of intel and exploitable information which makes it possible for services such as Facebook and Google to sell better targeted ads and thus earn their pay and the possiblity to uphold their service to you.

Now, while Facebooks tacit change of TOS certainly was abusive and unreasonable form a jurisdictional point of view – I certainly am not for Facebook having such a license on my artistic photographs or poetry that I’ve put on FB -, but the illusion of billions of internet users that they are entitled to complete privacy when they use free services provided to them is laughable. The second you step on the internet and start displaying your online personality through Twitter, MySpace, Plurk, FriendFeed, Flickr and what not, you willingly give up your right to a complete protection of your data. The advantages of interconnecting with your friends, to find new ones, to create communities… in short partake in the new version of the web, will never be just for free. You give up rights of your own. So, yes, the level of shock and outrage at the current example of Facebook is based on users not knowing what they’re doing. Not only is this a source of ridicule, but presents a paradox of epic proportions: on the one hand people consider their internet trails of insidious binge pictures, senseless tweets, 25 things about me notes and 10 random thoughts, their own property that needs protecting, but on the other hand they’re all too quick to hand over said property to save a few $ and use a free service instead of a paid one, simply because we no longer sign physically with our name such contracts, but with a simple click.

Wake up people. Learn to use the Privacy Settings on your services (Facebook Privacy Settings You Should Know About) , learn to read the Terms of Service before just hitting ‘send’ and get a grip on your own life: Nothing in the world is for free.

And lastly: you are not as important as you think.

NB: Don’t forget the latest trend: tweet your location