I’ve not personally verified this, but Valleywag is reporting on a massive data leak from Myspace via Yahoo. From VW:
Want to see Paris Hilton’s MySpace profile? How about Lindsay Lohan’s? Don’t worry about those pesky privacy settings. Thanks to “data portability,” a faddish technology movement that the Valley has been buzzing about for months, you can see any profile you want on MySpace. Byron Ng, a Canadian computer technician with a knack for finding Web security holes, has discovered that Yahoo’s integration with MySpace makes it easy to view photos for any profile.
The instructions for the hack are presented in a separate article. We should note this isn’t the first time Myspace has been breached, and while privacy nuts get all worked up over this, I’m not sure how much this registers with the mass audience. The takeaway in this episode is summed up nicely by writer Owen Thomas:
This points to a flaw in the notion of data portability, a movement which seeks to have personal information shared between social networks and other websites. Data portability was borne out of a wrongheaded assumption: That data needs to be shared. Most consumers, I believe, aren’t particularly interested in the concept; they belong to a few social networks at most, and don’t find managing their online personas to be a particular challenge.
Indeed. And the reason big companies have “signed on” to DP isn’t because they want to make the web easier for us, it is because DP is personal, monetizable data sharing taken to the nth level.
“And the reason big companies have “signed on” to DP isn’t because they want to make the web easier for us, it is because DP is personal, monetizable data sharing taken to the nth level.”
Perhaps. Or perhaps you’re taking too narrow a view of DP. It’s not about “sharing” as much as it is about ownership — sharing is just one (often small) facet of this ownership.
When the service shutdowns and buyouts start happening with this next downturn, the implications of these ownership issues will become more apparent.