Disruptions: And the Privacy Gaps Just Keep On Coming
By NICK BILTON FEBRUARY 19, 2012
SAN FRANCISCO - Another week. Another privacy debacle.
This time, Apple is to blame. Yes, the company that has promoted itself as more private and secure than the other guys, with its stringent app approval process, has actually been handing out people's address books as if they were sausage samples on a toothpick at the supermarket.
Next week there will be another privacy slip. And again the week after. Like the movie "Groundhog Day," where the day repeats itself. Where the day repeats itself. Where the day repeats ... you get the point.
It might be Google, Amazon, Sony, Facebook or Apple, again. Or perhaps a small Silicon Valley start-up in such a rush to get its product out in the face of competition that it will focus more on designing the icon of its app, than ensuring users' privacy.
Imagine if a bank paid more attention to the color of the carpet in its lobby than the type of safe it uses to store its customers' valuables. No one would want to store anything there, that's for sure.
Um, no, I don't get the point. Groundhog Day is a metaphor for the process leading to maturity, and about how its protagonist is condemned to repeat the same cycle until /he/ adapts, grows, and changes (as are we all ...). In like manner, the spread of "private" information from cellphones to commercial databases will, in time, lead to a more mature and more realistic view of both our society and of its people.
Further, a bank is /always/ going to pay more attention to the color of its carpet than to the type of safe it uses: the carpet is what the customers /see/, and the type of safe is dictated by the bank's insurance carrier, so any safe that satisfies the insurer will be perfectly adequate. Using a Nineteenth-century allegory for a Twenty-first century issue is disrespecful to his readers.
Bill Horne Moderator