Intellect or Insanity, Jonathan Klinger's Blog

WPP, the advertising giant, leased a database that allows profiling more than 500,000,000 internet users and allows showing them, using this information, relevant and tiered ads. The profile based advertising method means that there is no actual knowledge about the specific person browsing the internet, but the advertising companies know better than him what he likes, where he browses and other information.

The collection of the information was made available mostly by third party cookies, the same cookies which are set in your computer when you browse websites by advertising and media companies. These companies have a better understanding than the specific sites they provide services to. For example, if WPP purchases media in websites A and B, it knows who uses both A and B, and moreover, it knows that if C, a person, uses the sport section more both in A and B, it will show him sport-related advertisements when it uses D, a non-sport website.

Well, as troubling as it may sound, just when we are are meant to be calmed down with privacy issues things get worse. Google’s launch of Google Plus, the search giant’s antisocial network, which was meant to be with privacy by design and allows sharing of information according to different circles of proximity: a person could be a left-winged activist for his immediate family, but be a closet right-wing bigot for his school friends. It’s not that the other antisocial-netowork, Facebook, does not have the functionality to create friend lists and share the information, but it’s a lot more complicated there.

So, Google Plus was meant to be a haven for privacy seekers: It brought the best from Facebook, which was a walled garden for many years and from Twitter, which allows asynchronous social contacts (meaning I could add Benjamin Netanyahu as a person I follow, without him having to follow me ). Theoretically, an intertopia.

But the question is: how does Google benefit from Plus? (or what’s the plus for Google). Google is a media and advertising giant more than anything else. It earns money from selling advertising space; therefore it is in need for two indices: the first is the number of webpages viewed by end users and the time they consume in said pages (billboarding) and the second is the quality of the data it has for selling advertisements better (profiling).

In billboarding, Google suffered a grave loss recently; people spend less time in Google’s services and more in the other antisocial network; moreover, Google, that displays advertisements in 3rd party websites, is in fear of the day where Facebook shall launch a competing service and allow displaying “Facebook Ads”. In profiling, Google had a not-so-awful knowledge on your browsing behaviour, the things you liked and the people you connected with, it just didn’t know how to organize them. For example, if you’re interested in three different data, Google did not have the ability to connect datum to datum.

In came Google Plus and helped to solve the two problems: First, at least in the launch date, more and more people use this service to meticulously sort their friends in close circles and spend more time in their website (more billboards and profiling).

Now, all that Google needs to do is to integrate the social network seamlessly in the services it already provides. If Facebook made people take effort to amend their website’s code and display the “Like Button” in one million websites within a year of the product’s launch [which, of course, allows behavioural targerting] then Google could take one simple step to kill the like button, which is reasonable and mean.

A material portion from the websites, as said, implement Google-Analytics, Google’s statistics service that collects behavioural data. It is activated every time that a user browses a website and retrieves a file from Google’s servers which include JavaScript commands that request data and collect statistics. In the same manner, Google could change the file to allow social interaction and display a social toolbar in a same way to how Wibiya interacts with websites, and they can do it without obtaining the websites’ consent.

Indeed, it is not an optimal step and might cause antagonism, but it could be implemented to wipe Facebook’s remains from the earth, just because it already holds a neat market share. At this moment, Google has the best data to sell advertisements, and that cannot be taken away.

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The Wall Street Journal’s findings that Facebook applications share personal and identifiable information with 3rd parties and advertising networks was not surprising though it echoed in the mediashpere and even made some changes coerced the removal of some applications of the popular social network; However, the disturbing part was what Facebook did not do, and that is to remove Zynga, Facebook’s new strategic partner and the developer of the popular game FarmVille.

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In brief, the Wall Street Journal’s findings were that most of the popular applications in the social network transmit or convey information to advertising networks and 3rd parties. These activities go against Facebook’s clause 8 to the developer policy that prohibit the transmission of any personal information obtained from Facebook to an advertising network. The prohibition, of course, is not due to worries on your privacy, but because Facebook wants its monopoly over advertising in the network. Following this publication, Facebook removed some applications by the popular developer, LOLapps, who was one of those who conveyed information and restored it after a few hours (see LOLapps release).

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But the removal did not inherently cause from conveying information; but as the Inquirer states, the information was passed because of the way the internet was build, where in every click information about the referring page is transmitted, so at least in some of the causes, advertising companies received the information solely because they knew what was the referring page. On the other hand, one can say that by reasonable steps this security breach would have been fixed and therefore allowing reasonable measures to be taken is one part of security.

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Up to here there’s nothing new: Facebook removes a certain application because it infringes on your privacy (and Facebook’s ability to monetize by being the exclusive designated advertiser) and וfour and a half million dollars go down the drain because they solely rely on the Zuckerberg family’s whims, where they determine the laws of the game. However, what needs to be learned is what Facebook did not do, and how it relates to your privacy.

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The question why Zynga was not removed from Facebook is the exact signaling for the reason why Facebook removed LOLapps; both applications infringed the same developer agreement and your privacy, however, Zynga signed a commercial agreement with Facebook and uses the Facebook currency as its payment method and promotes Facebook’s business. This was a signaling to other developers: either migrate to Facebook’s services and be a part of the Zuckerberg family’s ecosystem, or find yourselves subject to our whims. Facebook’s commercial dependency on Zynga doesn’t allow Facebook’s interests to remove it; and LOLapps? it can seek its friends elsewhere.

[Originally in Hebrew]

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It is only a matter of time until both the Facebook Application Developers and Facebook Users join together and tell Facebook “there is no taxation without representation” while requesting Facebook both to amend its terms of service for enhanced privacy and allow application developers to rely on business models that are not subject to Facebook’s whims. The sanction, if not understood, is not mass removal of accounts, but blocking Facebook’s 3rd party services when not browsing in Facebook, therefore harming Facebook’s new found business model.

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The reason? Facebook has been vigorously expanding its control over both user information and application developers. It began today when Facebook coerced Zynga into an agreement to use Facebook Credits as its currency after a long dispute, and will continue when Facebook will do so to other application developers.

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Facebook forgot that it is solely a conduit, the incumbent who provides connection between users, other users and applications. It is not a core application and its business model is not based on being such. Two years ago, I wrote that “In a year or two Facebook’s shareholders will come to their senses and start asking money from the leading hundred applications, as they are allowed to do” … “when you develop a Facebook application or any other social network based application, you’re writing your source code on ice; it’s more than reasonable to assume that Facebook won’t charge you anything and will never shut you down. The problem starts when you want to establish a business model on something that’s more than “more than reasonable” (like investing your pension funds). That’s why, like you wouldn’t deploy a real product without contracting your deployment contractor, you really should consider doing the same with Facebook”.

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The time has come when Facebook wants to have its day. Facebook Application Developers raise capital from investors, some VCs target only Facebook apps, other VCs invest in another icy road, iPhone Apps raise capital as well, and quite a lot of it. The iPhone app store is also known to block applications, especially when those applications compete with Apple’s business models. Some day, Venture Capitalists will say to application developers that they will not invest in applications where the conduit may revoke them at any time and for no reason. Therefore, application developers will have to look for stable business models, such as using OpenID as a social network or allowing data portability, applications may prefer to use old social models or rely on Twitter as a social network instead of Facebook, just so they will not be coerced into using a currency of choice. No one will develop for a platform that has no stability (this is why, by the way, net neutrality is so important)

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Users, from the other end of the scope, will negotiate with Facebook. Explaining that it may not be as simple as Facebook reckons, and that without users, it is a mere conduit, connecting sockets and bits. “If you want us to stay here“, they will say, “you have to grant us our rights. We want to have the privacy of our choice, we want to have the ability to control, and if you grant us those rights, we will grant you the information you need to sell to ³rd parties“.

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Without such negotiations, Facebook is doomed. Funds will not invest in companies who develop Facebook Applications, as these applications have no solid business model, and Users will leave (or block) Facebook. It will remain with a magnificent apparatus that is left unused. And when unused, it will be sold, like scrapmetal.

Sometimes, we prefer to lose our privacy in exchange for comfort; we do so when we store our contacts on a cellular phone or when we print business cards which we exchange with strangers; the social interaction itself is a difficult and dangerous transaction. However, the real danger lies where privacy and comfort decide to interact, in involuntary exchange of information.

Today’s, Techonomy, a conference about the interaction between technology and economy, was held in Tel-Aviv. The winners of the Start-up competition were face.com. face.com provides a face recognition platform for social networks (in the meantime) which locates images of you and your friends in other users’ tagged photos. face.com’s face recognition is quite amazing and has the ability to find you even when you’re in the background or wearing sunglasses. They are currently in closed alpha, and I had the pleasure to play with it for a few minutes before writing this blogpost (which was sufficient to know that it’s quite efficient).

However, my main concern comes from face.com’s database. face.com can recognise faces of your facebook contacts even though they are not in your albums, but in friends’ albums. This means that by cross indexing a relatively small amount of facebook connectors, face could retain (or store) the facial recognition of a high percentage of users.

Here comes the privacy issue from the privacy freak; however. Now, take Israel’s new attempt to establish a biometric and face database and their recent attempts for installing cctvs and imagine the hypothetical scenario where our benevolent dictator comes and asks face.com’s database in order to examine a suspect in terrorism or issues a warrant to require face.com to search for a specific missing/suspected person in social networks and/or cctvs. Can face.com actually refuse such generous offer?

When face.com only indexes my own photos, and only tags me if I gave my consent (and not opted out) then it’s all yet consensual waiver of privacy; privacy in exchange for comfort, what we usually do. However, when it’s other’s faces, without their consent or knowledge, such a database might be extremely dangerous. I’d love to inspect the guts of face.com’s database and see how can they protect users’ privacy without limiting this application, but if they manage to do that, well, let them sell it to our government

[Also in Hebrew]

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“You acknowledge and agree that Facebook may at any time in its sole discretion, without liability, with or without cause and with or without notice: (a) terminate this Agreement; (b) terminate or suspend your access to Facebook Platform, Facebook Properties and/or the Facebook Site or any portion or feature of any of them; and/or (c) remove, block, delete or disable access to your Facebook Platform Applications and/or or any Facebook Platform Application Content, including without limitation if we determine, in our sole discretion, that your Facebook Platform Application or any Facebook Platform Application Content is unsuitable for Facebook Platform, Facebook Site or Facebook Users (…)

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While the blogoshpere and the technological sections in the newspapers are running around the Web 2.0 buzz (and some of the 3.0 buzz as well), We keep forgetting where the real bubble for this technology lies. When Om Malik explained yesterday at TWS2008 that advertisers are the ones impeding the net from developing and dot com startups that develop Facebook applications without any business models get millions of dollars in funding, there’s only one question: when will people realise what Facebook‘s real business model?

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Google shut down a few blogs which opposed Barack Obama, possibly because Obama supporters tagged them as spam. It was ll executed by automatic systems where the censorship was made by private entities, but it doesn’t actually matter, as Blogspot’s terms of service state that “Google may, in its sole discretion, at any time and for any reason, terminate the Service, terminate this Agreement, or suspend or terminate your account”.

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Constitutional Law is probably dead and irrelevant; what was the private sector until recently  was settled in under “Private Law” or “Civil Law”, but today everything changed: Companies that develop applications for social networks or webservices are subjected to the new constitutional law, the Terms of Service.: The problem begins when stable business models that companies build upon and get their funding due to them are based on social networks’ grace. This is not a stable agreement, but a unilateral agreement that grants the social network (or the search engine) an exclusive right to terminate the agreement and prevent the company from operating. (And it’s important to understand that when I relate to facebook in this post I also mean any other social network or webservice like Twitter that allows 3rd party applications)
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Now, some might say that Facebook’s income and  value are derived from the amount of applications it has. Cynicists may say something completely different: Facebook’s value is derived from its ability to monetize the applications that those will be able to run on the platform.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, photo by KK+ under cc-by-nc-sa license.

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In a year or two Facebook’s shareholders will come to their senses and start asking money from the leading hundred applications, as they are allowed to do. Their policy would be similar to this: An application with less than a million users may run freely, but once you obtained a million users, you’ll pay us one US$ per user. That’s fair, isn’t it? And then what? will these companies shut down and go home? not really.

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It’s crucial to understand that when you develop a Facebook application or any other social network based application, you’re writing your source code on ice; it’s more than reasonable to assume that Facebook won’t charge you anything and will never shut you down. The problem starts when you want to establish a business model on something that’s more than “more than reasonable” (like investing your pension funds). That’s why, like you wouldn’t deploy a real product without contracting your deployment contractor, you really should consider doing the same with Facebook.

Each person chose who to follow and who will follow him, so de-facto a social network was created from followers and followees.. GroupTweet came to supply Twitter with what Prologue was trying to enable, a short group blog for everyone to read

And how was it done? In order to use the service, you needed to open a new twitter account and add its details to GroupTweet; afterwards, any message sent to the account was publish as a micropost in twitter, a full group blog.

However, one sunny day in Tel-Aviv made it all wrong, Orli Yakuel, a leading blogger in the Web 2.0 field, found out that all her personal messages appeared as posts in her twitter account; The reason? Yakuel checked GroupTweet on her personal twitter instead of opening a new account for GroupTweet.

It’s quite a problem with the ‘Web 2.0′ standpoint which views web-based services as Applications. No one will ever install software on his computer without reading about it, knowing what it does or even hear about it. However, in the Web 2.0 Era, Installing an application requires only a click, so it seems natural to install everything to experiment (without knowing what the application does); We don’t ask ourselves whether the website collects private data, who is behind him or what it does anyway.

For example, most of useless Facebook applications which made Facebook alive, are there because Facebook’s architecture allows 3rd parties to withdraw private data and doesn’t require users to register 3rd party applications installed. In this situation, when it is so easy to install applications, privacy matters will appear; even in an application with the utmost good will, Facebook still passes private information to the application and it can utilize it prior to any users’ knowledge of what the application does.

Web 2.0 is a material dialectical perception: it allows any person to interact in the democratic discourse and create his own internet content; it also, like any technology, is quite dangerous when not used carefully. Like any saw, electrical appliance and stereo deserve an operating manual, so do Web 2.0 applications, even if they have shiny, big and simple buttons.

This story, like Ashley Alexandra Dupree‘s story, has all the characteristics of a good internet story which raises the right questions. Max Mosely, the president of F1 Racing, was caught with his pants down when he was involved with a fetishist orgy dressed as a Nazi officer (for Jews like me, this may be a quite offending). Allegedly, a great case in Internet Law for law students which may have to face all the issues and details in the case, and above all, Mosely’s right for privacy. Publishing Mosely’s sex tape proves how perverted and peeping society we live in, whose perversions are no less offending than Mosely’s.

Indeed, it is quite hard to think of a harsher perversion than the one acted by Mosely as he was beating a group of women while dressed in Nazi uniform and they were dressed as prisoners in a death camp; The perversion is amazing, and I doubt if Mosely, which holds a small capital, could have used any tools to prevent the leak of this video to the public domain as both Scientologists did with Tom Cruise‘s leaked video (by legal means) or like Muslims who tried to remove Geert Wilders‘ movie, Fitna, with less legal means by threatening the lives of publishers. It seems that maybe my understanding of “If you have money, you have justice” is incorrect when the acts are so extreme.

I don’t want to justify Mosely’s Fetish, nor do I wish to legitimise it, but we need to stop and think, and not just in the Internetish manner, should we criticise these people..

Max Mosely might not be a good man, he had fetishist sex with hookers while he was dressed as a Nazi officer, and this is enough to put him in my black book. But would he have gotten to my black book without someone invading his privacy? These are the cases where one’s right for privacy is so important. Privacy is meant for people like Mosely to execute their perversions without being in the public eye (as long as those perversions are legal, of course), in a private place and with consenting adults.

No one should ask me how do I have my sex, thank god, and not one will get an answer if he’ll ask. But you have to understand that the real criminal here is the one who leaked the video and infringed Mosely’s secret, and he will have to pay.

On may 2002, after desperately receiving meaningless emails from friends as they travelled abroad and elaborate how they climbed every mountain, I issued my first newsletter. I didn’t name it as a newsletter, but “One for me and one for my homies“. The mail was sent to all those friends who were abroad and thought that sending me impersonal emails will make me answer them in a personal manner. However, this was their effective mean of communication with the outside world as they had an hour or so to communicate.

I maintained the newsletter on an available time basis, usually, when something interesting happened in my life, or just some development, I released another one. All and all, sixty one emails were issued which you can read in the Gan Shula Newsletter Archive (English). The newsletter was my therapy, it was my mean to be in touch with all my friend who were abroad and didn’t have time to communicate with me. In the beginning, the newsletter was addressed only to friends abroad (and it was the post-military period of my life, where almost everyone was), after a short time more friends asked to join, so when I had around forty subscribers, I realised i had something.

During that time, I published various political texts in odd places, from the Land of the Deer Forum, through the Social Democrat’s party website and other places. Therefore, when a friend asked me why don’t i have a blog, my answer was simply since i don’t need one. I explained to her that I have my newsletter and everyone who’s important to me reads it. I had the platform to publish my sh*t, meaning, I had all the freedom of expression I needed.

[I was mistaken]

In his excellent book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell explains (I’d put the page number, but Meir didn’t return the book yet) about Connectors, In general, connectors are people who maintain low intensity relations with large amounts of people. (checkout Gladwell’s website for more interesting stuff). Connectors are those people who know everyone, or know people who can know everyone. Gladwell presents an experiment by Stanley Milgram referred to as “Degrees of Separation” where people in the United States where asked to deliver a parcel, through their friends and acquaintances. Milgram found out that almost all the subjects were able to pass the parcel. (for detailed information). Gladwell analysed the experiment and found out that most of the activity was done by connectors or super-connectors who know most of the people.

Most people know some connector. If the effective circle of friends (or social network) is of 180 ties, connectors may have broader circles, especially if those are able to maintain low intensity relations

The all-but-irrelevant-and-new social networks have a esoteric or maybe undeclared feature, and probably this feature was not planned as they were established. Gal More explains that social networks were not meant to broaden out social circle (Hebrew) and i tend to agree. As Sharon Gefen said Social networks lack intimacy and lack the personal relation that occurs in real life. My theorem is that Social Networks attempt to transform all their users to connectors, or at least to pseudo-connectors.

A week ago i attended an opening of Know Hope‘s display in the “New and Bad” Gallery. I came with my date, who felt quite uncomfortable. Why? I chit-chatted with many people during the opening with small-talk and minor discussions. Apparently, out of a hundred and something people who attended, I knew at least half of them. Most of my relations with those people was from different social circles. Some came from high-school, some from school, some from the university and some “just from Tel-Aviv” (meeting people in events just like this). My ability to create low-intensity relations, along side my ability to connect two people who will interest one another (while remaining passive) was the reason that my date felt uncomfortable, she knew one person in that event only, me. .

I don’t despise social networks. I reckon that they are an excellent product, they function just like any other technological mean. Social Networks were meant to replace physical connectors and make them efficient. Let’s assume that any person knows a connector or two, is that enough to reach any person in Israel? From experience, with three or four connector friends you can reach (almost) any person in Israel, including celebrities, parliament members, ministers and prime ministers. Can Facebook do that? I doubt it.

Ehud Olmert will not open an account in Facebook, and no one will add him as a contact. Yossi Beilin has a The Marker-Cafe account with 72 contacts, but he is one of the only parliament members who maintain such an account with social networking. And even he isn’t present on the network for the vast periods of time most people are.

Maybe the reason for not opening a Facebook account is that i want to believe that I’m a real-life connector, maybe it’s from the same reason i tend not to use a calculator, since i believe that the human insight and humanity has more importance. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be proven mistaken, after all my friends start getting laid using their facebook accounts.

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Image CC-BY-SA Jakob Lodwick