What does "privacy" mean?

It can be awfully hard to figure out what is meant by "privacy" when it gets bandied around in the context of Google, Amazon, Facebook and just generally as far as "web 2.0".  We get pronouncements like "privacy doesn't exist anymore, get over it" from various interested parties. Agencies like Canada's "Privacy Commissioner" fight the good fight, but seem to be tilting at windmills.

If we look to the dictionaries, privacy seems to equal secrecy in some sense.  To keep something "private" means to keep it secret.  Or does it? Not really.  It just means that I keep the information restricted to a small number of people (perhaps only myself if I want a real secret). I have "public" and "private" lives and the difference is a matter or how much I share and with whom.

Now, its pretty clear that "privacy" is a property of information about me: who my friends are, where I live, my cell phone number, my bank accounts, etc. When someone "violates my privacy", they are undermining my choices about who and where I've decided to share this information with. My "sense of privacy" is about my ability to control that information. And that's really the operative word: "control".  Privacy is really about someone's ability (and right) to control the dissemination of information about them.

So, there are two issues when it comes to "privacy" in a fully-networked, post-9/11 world. One, do I actually have any such control anymore? And two, is it even important to people. Some have certainly argued that it's not important, given people's ability and often willingness to live their lives entirely in public via blogs, Twitter and Facebook (see the above link for one). Others have argued that between Google and the NSA, we have, at best, a bare illusion of privacy and there's really no point in trying to control it.

Personally, I think all of that's just crap. So much of what we still do depends on various assumptions of privacy (e.g. not even the most open blogger is going to post their bank account numbers), and the success of at least two recent life-changing pieces of technology hinged intimately on their ability to deliver privacy (or at least perceived privacy) in a networked world.

The first of these was text-messaging. I know some of you will say "what does that have to do with privacy?" but perhaps only those of an older generation who didn't grow up on their cell phones. To us, it's often a complete mystery as to why anyone would give their thumbs such a workout to text something when a quick phone call is easier. It really hinges on unobtrusiveness and privacy. Sending or receiving a text isn't anywhere as socially disruptive as a phone call. And unlike a phone call, nobody around you can see the texts you send or receive unless you choose to share them. Add to that the fact that a TXT conversation can easily shift back-and-forth between realtime and deferred, and you've got killer tech.

The second of these is Facebook. Again, I'll probably get another "what do you mean?" response when I claim that its success hinged on its delivery of privacy (or "perceived privacy"). Think about it for a second though – what did Facebook replace? Myspace. And why did FB succeed as Myspace descended into niche tech? Largely because virtually all of Facebook's utility centered around the "limited" distribution of personal information instead of the broadcast model that Myspace adopted. In terms of differential utility, Facebook's original sell was the updates feed: "what are my friends doing now?" Quite simply, this is a feature that has virtually no utility once you have too many friends (so "friend networks" on FB more-or-less matched actual relationships), and the more sense you have that "only friends" can see it the more you are likely to expose actual personal details (i.e. I'm going to be at this bar at this time). The need to control the relationship model to reflect your sense of privacy (i.e. to use your real identity and to limit FB "friends" to more-or-less real friends) and the ability to exchange useful, private information via these channels was the killer combination of features that allowed FB to win big. And the lack of attention to that lesson is perhaps why FB may now be on the wane.

So, that's been one of my driving goals with Gleanr. In my mind, if you want to produce real tools for managing information, that also means for managing the sharing of information. A somewhat nuanced understanding of privacy is, to my mind at least, essential if you want to design a system that respects it. There are a lot of broadcast tools out there (after all that's what the Web has always been about), but precious few that allow individuals to mix broadcasting and narrow-casting well. I hope that we can achieve that with Gleanr.