Informationoverlord

Just read an interesting post by Bruce Schneier on his idea for a taxonomy of social networking data, which he sets out as follows:

1. Service data. Service data is the data you need to give to a social networking site in order to use it. It might include your legal name, your age, and your credit card number.
2. Disclosed data. This is what you post on your own pages: blog entries, photographs, messages, comments, and so on.
3. Entrusted data. This is what you post on other people’s pages. It’s basically the same stuff as disclosed data, but the difference is that you don’t have control over the data — someone else does.
4. Incidental data. Incidental data is data the other people post about you. Again, it’s basically same stuff as disclosed data, but the difference is that 1) you don’t have control over it, and 2) you didn’t create it in the first place.
5. Behavioural data. This is data that the site collects about your habits by recording what you do and who you do it with.

Interesting discussion in the comments (so yes, you should go and actually read the original post!) about whether Bruce’s taxonomy works - for example whether 2-4 are all Disclosed data subsets - 2. Disclosed data (controlled), 3. Disclosed data (entrusted), 4. Disclosed data (incidental); whether there should be an additional facet covering Crosslinked Data; and whether the term ‘ “Incidental Data” is obvious as a label or should be called something else.

Techcrunch and others seem to be running with the story of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp looking to maybe cut a deal with Microsoft to allow it to carry links to its news content whilst cutting off Google.

I’m sure the folks at Google are thinking – so what.

If Microsoft and Murdoch think that this deal would suddenly drive lots of people away from Google and over to Bing I think they are showing yet another spectacular lack of understanding of how things work.

Most people use Yahoo News / Google News / MSN News etc to find out ‘what is going on now’ - they are after breaking news. They are not – as a rule – looking for ‘what’s breaking at The Sun / The Times etc. If they are interested in that then they’ll either go directly to that paper’s website or they’ll already have some sort of rss feed set up from that publication to alert them to any new content.

Microsoft/Bing would need exclusive deals with a LOT of publishers for this to have any effect what-so-ever. For the ROI, I’m not convinced that would be money well spent.

The Government has published the Digital Economy Bill. It contains lots of interesting things, which I may come back to in further pots, but I thought that as a Librarian (it is easy to forget reading this blog), I should bring people’s attention to Section 44 - Public lending right
(1)
Section 5(2) of the Public Lending Right Act 1979 (interpretation) is amended

as follows.

(2) Before the definition of “local library authority” insert—

““author”, in relation to a work recorded as a sound recording, includes a producer or narrator;
“book” includes—

(a) a work recorded as a sound recording and consisting mainly of spoken words (an “audio-book”), and

(b) a work, other than an audio-book, recorded in electronic form and consisting mainly of (or of any combination of) written or spoken words or still pictures (an “e-book”)

“lent out”—

(a) means made available to a member of the public for use away from library premises for a limited time, but
(b) does not include communicated by means of electronic transmission to a place other than library premises, and “loan” and “borrowed” are to be read accordingly;

“library premises” has the meaning given in section 8(7) of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964;”.

(3) After the definition of “prescribed” insert—

““producer” has the meaning given in section 178 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988;”.

(4) At the end of the definition of “the register” omit “and”.

(5) After the definition of “the Registrar” insert—

““sound recording” has the meaning given in section 5A(1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.”

(6) The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 is amended as follows.

(7) In section 40A (permitted acts in relation to copyright works: lending of copies by libraries or archives), for subsection (1) substitute—

“(1) Copyright in a work of any description is not infringed by the following acts by a public library in relation to a book within the public lending

right scheme—

(a) lending the book;

(b) in relation to an audio-book or e-book, copying or issuing a copy of the book as an act incidental to lending it.

(1A) In subsection (1)—

(a) “book”, “audio-book” and “e-book” have the meanings given in section 5 of the Public Lending Right Act 1979

(b) “the public lending right scheme” means the scheme in force under section 1 of that Act,

(c) a book is within the public lending right scheme if it is a book within the meaning of the provisions of the scheme relating to eligibility, whether or not it is in fact eligible, and
(d) “lending” is to be read in accordance with the definition of “lent out” in section 5 of that Act (and section 18A of this Act does not apply).”

(8) In Schedule 2, in paragraph 6B (permitted acts in relation to performances: lending of copies by libraries or archives)

(a) at the beginning insert—

“(A1) The rights conferred by this Chapter are not infringed by the following acts by a public library in relation to a book within the public lending right scheme—

(a) lending the book;

(b) in relation to an audio-book or e-book, copying or issuing a copy of the book as an act incidental to lending it.

(A2) Expressions used in sub-paragraph (A1) have the same meaning as in section 40A(1).”;

(b) in sub-paragraph (2), for “this paragraph” substitute “sub-paragraph (1)”.

The most interesting thing seems to be the clause that states that ‘lent out’, ‘loan’, ‘borrowed’ do not include anythng ‘commnicated by means of electronic transmission’ to anywhere outside of the library So, no eBook loans over the internet then. How forward thinking.

Well it happened quicker than I thought, but the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of Ministers reached an agreement on EU Telecoms Reform, by the end of the first day of the conciliation procedure.

The two sides reached a quite comprise over the clause to guarantee access to the internet.

The newly agreed Article 1(3)a of the new Framework Directive, now reads:

“Measures taken by Member States regarding end-users’ access to or use of services and applications through electronic communications networks shall respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and general principles of Community law.

Any of these measures regarding end-users’ access to or use of services and applications through electronic communications networks liable to restrict those fundamental rights or freedoms may only be imposed if they are appropriate, proportionate and necessary within a democratic society, and their implementation shall be subject to adequate procedural safeguards in conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and general principles of Community law, including effective judicial review and due process. Accordingly, these measures may only be taken with due respect for the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. A prior fair and impartial procedure shall be guaranteed, including the right to be heard of the person or persons concerned, subject to the need for appropriate conditions and procedural arrangements in duly substantiated cases of urgency in conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms . The right to an effective and timely judicial review shall be guaranteed.”

This text is watered down from the EP original amendment that the “prior ruling” must be by “judicial authorities”, although thankfully the “presumption of innocence” that the Council also wanted dropped remains in place.

Following final votes in Parliament and Council in November, the whole telecoms package, which includes the creation of a new European Telecom Authority (BEREC), increased power for the Commission to oversee regulatory remedies proposed by national regulators, powers for national regulators to impose a ‘functional separation’ remedy, and a consumer right to port telephone numbers within 1 day, could come into force in early 2010. EU countries will then have 18 months to incorporate the new provisions into their national legislation.

Thanks to James Mullan and Headshift for bringing my attention to this must read post of Capgemini’s ‘Capping IT Off’ blog entitled ‘4 Myths about blocking Internet access in the enterprise’

The post echoes comments I made in my post from last week ‘Why ‘wasted time’ is wasted column inches’ about just why blocking access to and banning social networking and other sites from the workplace is counterproductive and, frankly, stupid.

Rick Mans’ 4 myths are:

His conclusion is simple - TALK with your employees. “You only block Internet access when you are afraid to talk with your employees about their behavior. Preventing behavior does not solve your problems, it will prevent them just for a short period of time.”

I could not agree more.

[What does make this amusing however is the number of comments on Rick’s post about Capgemini’s policies re internet access. Seems maybe they don’t share Rick’s approach on this one. Sort of, do as I say, not as I do].