Jaiku Bought By Google, Some Fear Privacy Issues

Platonic writes "According to the New York Times, Google's recent purchase of Jaiku, a little-known micro-blog service (think Twitter) might raise privacy concerns due to the automated nature of the web site's services. From the article: "The deal, announced this month, has much of the tech-tracking blogosphere abuzz. Some claim it is the harbinger of a new, truly interconnected world, where a chunk of our existence will migrate online ... Chris Messina, an open-source entrepreneur and founder of the consulting firm Citizen Agency, takes it a step further. In a blog post after the Jaiku deal was announced, he said that he envisioned a world where all information had migrated online, where the address book "lives in Googleland,"'"

Re:Jaiku

[moderatorrater]

And as for the privacy deal, there's nothing forcing people to use this kind of service.

If 90% of the people in the world are constantly updating the site with where they are and who they're with, the site will almost always have your location whether you sign up for it or not.

If 90% of the people in the world are a part of the service that degrades their privacy, the reasonable expectation of privacy gets lowered, and people start thinking that you have something to hide. It's an idiosyncrasy until it's a cop that gets that suspicion.

On the other hand, if 90% of the people in this world are willing to give up privacy for convenience (a very logical choice, one that everyone on this site has made, probably many times), then perhaps the other 10% should accept some compromises and deal with it.