Just call me a cranky old fart but the idea of centralized collection points of massive amounts of personal data and 99% of the time to make a profit (obscenely so) really irritates me.

I support your vision of p2p disaggregated social networking — and am working on building out that model.

I actually have faith that it the disaggregated-user-in-absolute-control model can work — and can actually be better than the siloed approach… but no one’s built it in any compelling fashion yet (what do you think the idea behind Flock was?) but the conversation is certainly happening now, so here’s hoping that we make more real progress on putting into concrete what we think this alternate reality should be like.

Now even though I may want to keep my money in the mattress that doesn’t change the fact I use bank ATM machines and the like or that I make a lot .. well some . transfers from PayPal to the bank.. I can do this because I willingly geve them the information they needed to be able to facilitate a service I need and use.

That doesn’t mean though that I trust either of them as far as I could spit into a headwind. PayPal isn’t one know for getting good press all the time and banks .. well they’re banks and nobody trusts them.

On the flip side of that is the Air Miles card I have in my wallet; and the only reason I do is because my wife got two of them, and it has stayed in the wallet unused because I don’t agree with what Air Miles uses all that information they collect about our buying habits (aggregated personal information - sound familar?)all for some occasional cheap goods if you have enough points or a reduced price if you don’t.

What you do with your personal data is strictly up to the individual but they are equally responsible to way the pro’s and con’s for every action they take when making that data available.

Putting this choice in the hands of data brokers or banks I believe would have hidden costs that would come back to bite us on the ass.

The sticky issue is that, today, as it stands, most folks can’t run their own social networks or instant message servers.

I’m not sure I totally agree with you on this depending on wither you think all your social interaction should go through the social network model.

Take myself as an example - I have more ways to interact with people than I can shake a stick at; which is aside from the privacy issue one of the resaons I am not enamored with social networks per se.

I have - blog - WinExtra forums - IRC Channel - IM (Skype and Live Messenger) - Twitter - email oh and the good old fashion phone (but not an iPhone ). Any of those ways people who I know or who are interested in me will get to me a lot sooner than some social network that wants to use me as a advertising platform guinea pig and buy a jumbo jet for fun from their profits from my information.

Even you are a part of my social circle as I follow you on Twitter and read your blog and in turn you comment on posts that I write and while that might be specifically in response to my comments or mentions about things you write. However that could change .. you could become more involved within my social sphere as you become more comfortable with me and read more than just my responses. We have reached a common ground - a common understanding and mutual respect.

Sure this way takes longer to develop a public sociosphere but it a far better platform to develop relationships on than something like Facebook. This is one reason that I look to things like Disqus (comment system) because they are helping us to build a personal social network or sociosphere without spreading our personal data far and wide.

But again this is a case of examining all the aspects of the deal and being willing to accept the trade-offs of giving a little something up in exchange for making it easier for people to be a part of my sociosphere.

Social networks are a mugs game at this point with the only winners being the advertisers and the providers.

The sticky issue is that, today, as it stands, most folks can’t run their own social networks or instant message servers. And even if they could, when it comes to interacting with their friends, well, most of their friends not only can’t run their own servers to house all the data, but most likely probably don’t want to. In fact, for a lot of the folks who didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving with an organic turkey in their not-so-humble Silicon Valley abode, I bet the phrase “social networking” for them doesn’t even conjure up thoughts of Facebook or MySpace or Hi5 or whatever. And for those for whom it would, well, I’m sure they’d be more than happy to hand over the keys to their personal profile to someone else if it means that they don’t even think about the bits and bytes as long as they can reach out to people that matter to them (or are simply casual encounters).

I mean, it’d be great if people did care about this data and realized its value, in aggregate anyway, and that, since they’re not paying directly for the service, money is, as you’ve pointed out repeatedly, going to have to be made somehow. And you don’t pay for Facebook-sized data centers by giving users the utmost control and ability to opt out… after all, as you said, they essentially signed a contract when they clicked the option to accept the site’s terms.

So realistically, where does that leave us? With a mattress with money stuffed under it? You may have avoided outsourcing your trust to anyone else, but at that point, what difference does it make? You can sit on your front porch with your shotgun smoking cloves and no one’s even going to come near you because they’ve dispensed with their privacy, trading it in online for access to social networking services that they couldn’t get otherwise.

Now, I’m simply outlining the problem that I see, not the solution that I want. And so when I point out that Facebook *could* be a data broker, I didn’t say that it *should* be. I personally don’t use Facebook all that much, but that’s not really what’s at issue, since I’m not like most folks out there outside the bubbleosphere.

The point is to put a value on your individual data, just like you do the money that you choose (or not) to deposit into a bank.

My fear really isn’t in giving all this data to Facebook; their business model at least, so far, requires that me and my friends continue entering in good quality, personal data about ourselves in order to continue enticing advertisers with ever-more-accurate demographic-targeting tools. The moment that I — or Facebook — loses respect for or devalues my personal data is the day that I begin to worry; if all of a sudden the photos I’ve been uploading for years gets deleted without a trace, or if all of a sudden my account gets closed without recourse… then I think people will come to the painful reality of just how valuable their data is to them — and how important it is to choose wisely — or better yet, choose many.

As it is today, Facebook users rely on the benevolence of Facebook to mostly do the right thing and keep their data (and their precious social graph) safe. Without the ability to move my data around, or designate an intermediary data broker to act on my behalf, I haven’t got a whole lot of support for the day when I decide, the hell with it!, I do want my data kept under my mattress after all!

This whole idea is idiocracy in my opinion… why can’t you just guard your own secrets? Why do you have to outsource it at all ?