[okfn-discuss] what are the arguments against open data

Tue Oct 8 08:40:46 UTC 2013

    > We do need to be wary of open-data movement becoming a blindly
    > pro-data-collection movement.

Quite. It has always struck me as somewhat strange that even early on,
long before the monolithic social networks, the FOAF crowd wanted
everybody to publish lists of their friends on their web pages (RDF,
etc). The sad fact is that much of this data that ought not be
collected is *willingly* published by the people themselves.

When the NSA has a facility at Google and Facebook for retrieving
information, the information they are getting is to a large extent
what the people have written on their walls. This behaviour in what is
and always has been a public place, the mistaken impression that
anything done there is somehow private is at the root of the problem. 

And this mistaken impression has long been encouraged. Just now we
have trials of Cisco and Facebook where if you "check in" (i.e. tell
Facebook and all your "friends" where you are) then you can have free
wifi in the mall. Give people a biscuit and they'll happily collect
data on themselves!

Far better, actually, to dispense with the illusion that this
information is in any way private, and publish it all.  Then there is
no asymmetry to be exploited. People will publish what they intend to
be public and will do private communication in an appropriate way. But
there's a lot less money in that, so it doesn't attract the massive
investment that Web 2.0 has seen...