At DIG, we are experimenting with FOAF - the "Friend Of A Friend" project that makes it possible for computers to link, merge, search, sort web information about people.
The geeky side of me revels in the idea of FOAF, imagining the web of connections rapidly building across the ether. I'm imagining the speed at which I could do certain kinds of research and the ease of finding people whose last names I can't remember. Soon we can all play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in earnest. And, we'll find out if we're actually connected by 6, 3.6, or some other number of degrees of separation.
I've already posted my own FOAF 1.0, which will provide a thread from people I've met at CSAIL to a couple of other technical people I know. I think of it as if they're the first guests to arrive at a party at my house.
. . .
Then the questions start to seep in. Can the people I know marginally (or don't care for) invite themselves to my party? What do I do when someone like that puts me in their FOAF? Can I make them take it off the web? Can I somehow override (overwrite?) their FOAF?
The lawyer part of me raises the ante on a coworker's privacy questions. I'm envisioning people being "FOAFed" -- the internet form of "outed" -- having relationships revealed that they hadn't intended to make public. What about companies mining my FOAF to market to everyone in my group? And, what about the access FOAF provides the government to association information that might otherwise require a subpoena or warrant to discover?
I haven't had a chance to think about this enough to decide if these issues are analagous to those raised by writing about someone else in my blog or having someone write about me in theirs. I would appreciate getting other people's opinions on this question.
In the meantime, I too will limit my FOAF to people who've given me permission and who I think understand the potential ramifications.
The geeky side of me revels in the idea of FOAF, imagining the web of connections rapidly building across the ether. I'm imagining the speed at which I could do certain kinds of research and the ease of finding people whose last names I can't remember. Soon we can all play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in earnest. And, we'll find out if we're actually connected by 6, 3.6, or some other number of degrees of separation.
I've already posted my own FOAF 1.0, which will provide a thread from people I've met at CSAIL to a couple of other technical people I know. I think of it as if they're the first guests to arrive at a party at my house.
. . .
Then the questions start to seep in. Can the people I know marginally (or don't care for) invite themselves to my party? What do I do when someone like that puts me in their FOAF? Can I make them take it off the web? Can I somehow override (overwrite?) their FOAF?
The lawyer part of me raises the ante on a coworker's privacy questions. I'm envisioning people being "FOAFed" -- the internet form of "outed" -- having relationships revealed that they hadn't intended to make public. What about companies mining my FOAF to market to everyone in my group? And, what about the access FOAF provides the government to association information that might otherwise require a subpoena or warrant to discover?
I haven't had a chance to think about this enough to decide if these issues are analagous to those raised by writing about someone else in my blog or having someone write about me in theirs. I would appreciate getting other people's opinions on this question.
In the meantime, I too will limit my FOAF to people who've given me permission and who I think understand the potential ramifications.
