Day: October 22, 2014

First, some VRooMy startups and projects:

• Chekk “Take control of your digital life.”
• Momentum “Own your life moments.”
• APHS invests in Flamingo to develop personal cloud platform Good
  investment news.
• Welcomer Short Overview – YouTube Kevin Cox explains, with visuals.
• pEp – pretty Easy privacy | Indiegogo The name says it all.

Next, I’ve got this idea that whawhat we need for full personal agency is an operating system of our own. Something that’s as personal as our own clothes, and just as wearable and privacy-affording. Also something we wield, like a tool. Or a set of them, which might include, if need be, weapons. So here are some links that point in that direction:

• Let’s create the OS of life | KurzweilAI Very Kurzweil, and not as far
  out there as the usual.
• The OS Fund “invests in entrepreneurs working towards quantum-leap discoveries that promise to reinvent the operating systems of life.”
• Leola Group “…we are building a digital freedom layer of the internet for all people by coding the core infrastructure and initial services for individuals to own and decide where and how to share their data.”
• Open protocols and open people: preserving the transformational potential of social media | openDemocracy By Kaliya, CEO of Leola. Excellent piece. Required reading.

Now for some government stuff:

• Open government and consumers | Open Government Partnership From the UK feds.
• What Germany’s Tight-Laced Privacy Mandate Means For Ad Tech Players That they’ll have to do at least some of the Right Things.

A collection of VRooMy posts by Don Marti, and links from some of those posts:

• Surfacing, not hiding, the creepy? Who’s on which side in the privacy battle. Ain’t what you think.
• Optimal privacy protection? “why high-value content sites are participating in ad targeting systems”
• Opportunity in surveillance marketing consolidation? “Clearly nobody in the IT industry is ready to give up getting a piece of the surveillance marketing business yet. But for whoever does first, the opportunity is waiting.”
• Snapchat ads and committing to non-targeting “If Snapchat can’t commit to its core feature, the idea that photos disappear after sending, how can the company credibly commit to less creepy, more valuable advertising?”
• Errata Security: Right-winger explains what’s wrong with ComputerCop
• Facebook And Google Are Bringing Walled Gardens Back. And there go lots of little ad companies that aren’t on the inside.
• The Ad Contrarian: Amazing Tale Of Online Ad Fraud Bob Hoffman nails it again. They don’t listen, of course. Why would anyone who makes hay while the sun shines out their butts?
• Hackers strike defense companies through real-time ad bidding | Computerworld
• Customers, not extortionists | rc3.org Rafe Colburn: “I don’t want to have to threaten a company to get decent customer service. If that’s what it takes, I don’t want to do business with the company at all. “

Data stuff:

• With Big Data Comes Big Responsibility – Harvard Business Review One would hope.
• The Dark Market for Personal Data – NYTimes.com More creepage.
• Who owns the data you generate online? – Forum:Blog Forum:Blog | The World
  Economic Forum Tough question.
• Data-Minimization-Study-2014.pdf

Etc.

• Uber Drivers Across The Country Are Protesting Today — Here’s Why — Business Insider As a passenger, I generally like Uber — especially the convenience and the prices. But I sense that it’s coming apart as more cabbies and livery professionals get involved as drivers. They want it to be an improvement in what they already do, but it isn’t, except as a much better dispatch system.
• How to survive do-it-yourself customer service – Business – The Boston Globe