That P-word again

Mike Butcher reports on Ester Dyson joining the board of Midentity, whose Etribes "Digital Lifestyle Aggregator" (DLA) takes "user-privacy" as a differentiating feature:

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DLAs are coming out at a prodigious rate now and it remains to be seen if the ‘privacy’ approach of etribes will capture the public’s imagination. And of course, you have Marc Canter and his PeopleAggregator.net project espousing the ideas of ‘openness’, so it’s interesting to see a figure like Dyson go down what is effectively the opposite route.

I also used to believe the net would have to evolve to encompass "privacy", in the traditional sense of the word—the concealment of information from others. But clearly, with the inexorable growth of blogs, MySpace and YouTube etc. is coming an information free-for-all.

It seems to me that if we are to have "privacy" online, we will have to re-invent the concept as being about re-framing (freely-available) information about each other with respect, and in the context of pervasive reputation for one's actions.

The age of hiding information is passing. So are services like Etribes not just trying to hold back the tide with respect to their privacy features? I note that privacy-focused social bookmarking service BlueDot.com is struggling to gain market share, despite offering an excellent service.

[Also written in comments on source post]

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