I’m just reading through a post by Chris Messina where he broaches the idea data brokers would act as intermediaries on our behavior between the social networks; and presumably or place where our data would be needed, and ourselves. He equates these brokers to safety deposit boxes for our personal data, but who; because they would have to be multi-APIlingual, would also advocate for us for better services as based on our worth to the social network system.

As he puts it:

We need data brokers introduced into the system — organizations who are like safety deposit receptacles for our data — and who speak all APIs and actually advocate on our behalves for better service based on how “valuable” we are — this is necessary to top the scales in our favor — to reintroduce a balancing force into the marketplace because right now the choice to leave means dissing our friends — but if I’m not satisfied but still want to talk to my friends, why can’t I be on the outside, but sending messages in? hell I’m willing to pay — in momentary access to my brokered personal profile — for access to my friends inside the silo.

Initially I can understand where Chris is coming from and the idea has merit but for one problem. At some point your personal and collective data will be in the hands of someone else other than yourself. So the question is - do you trust anyone - even a data broker - with your data?

In his post Chris suggests that Facebook could be a good data broker which while on the surface would make sense but in reality scares the hell out of me. Here have a corporation who has already proved that it will put its priorities above the network’s members as things like Beacon already show and now you want to give them unbridled control to act as a go-between for you. I don’t think so.

It boils down to a very simple thing - who do your trust with the most valuable thing in the world - your data?

Listening to: Annie Lennox - Songs of Mass Destruction - Dark Road

Conversation Tags: personal data, data brokers, data banks, social networks