Ever used Jaiku? It's a microblogging service similar to Twitter, except with more mobile features. It was recently bought by Google, but the latter's plans for its new acquisition have raised privacy fears over how much information people give up when using services like Jaiku, and what Google plans to do with it.
Why? This New York Times article explains some of the reasons. The idea of microblogging is you write about what you're doing, who you're doing it with, where you're doing it, and all the other minutae of your daily life. Exactly the sort of information that advertisers would kill for, in other words. And Google makes a lot of money from contextual advertising...
Jaiku's founders say they're alive to the implications, and will ensure users have plenty of privacy settings to retain control of how their data is used. But as these kinds of services take off, it'll be interesting to see how the balance evolves between privacy and profit.
(via New York Times)
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