May 2009

"All our information is being sucked into the cloud. Privacy is over." That was the bold declaration of Attorney Steve Masur at DCIA's P2P Media Summit per Washington Internet Daily.

• Wow. As stark an assessment that that is, what really disturbs me is the thought process and tech ethic that underlies this view.
• Mr. Masur is not alone, he is part of a growing publicacy mentality/movement that looks at privacy as:
  • A neandrethal expectation in the Internet Age,
  • Buzz-kill for Internet innovators, and
  • Road-kill for the cloud-computing bus speeding down the information super-highway.

My pushback here is the blind worship of technology or tech-determinism.

• I define tech-determinism to be:
  • if technology or innovation can do it, it must be good; and
  • if something stands in the way of technology and innovation, like privacy, it is in the way and should be terminated. 

Did it ever occur to the tech determinists that if there is no privacy in the cloud, many won't go there?

• Most users appreciate that technology should work for them, they don't work for technology.

Privacy isn't over. 

I wanted to flag a great post on why "open" business models have no monopoly on innovation, and why there is and can be lots of smart network innovation.

Don't miss Link Hoewing's thoughtful piece on the subject over at the Verizon Policy blog.

He does a good job explaining how innovation flourishes in a wide diversity of business and technology models.

"Network Based Security Is In Our Future" is an outstanding must-read analysis by Tom Tovar, CEO of Nominum.

Please read his full piece, its brief. Let me highlight some excellent points he made:

As the FCC lays the groundwork for its submission of a National Broadband Strategy to Congress next February, some suggest the U.S. follow the lead of Australia’s new broadband policy model. While it may have superficial and nostalgic appeal to some, upon close scrutiny and analysis it is not an applicable, practical or sound broadband policy option for the United States for a variety of reasons. The Australian “Fiber Mae” broadband policy model is:

• Not applicable to the U.S. because the ownership and competitive baselines in Australia and the U.S. are not analogous;
• Not practical for the U.S. because it is a hugely expensive proposal in an exceedingly tight budget/financial environment that would generate very little incremental additional benefit over the current competitive trajectory; and 
• Not sound policy for the U.S. because it pursues the wrong policy emphasis and structure, which could have the perverse result of the U.S. falling behind in broadband leadership -- the exact opposite of the intended result.