[Air-l] social network migration

['Gail Taylor]

Michael Zimmer wrote: "Returning to this discussion, Google is (surprise) working on a social networking platform called Socialstream, which would "draw content from a variety of sources. Socialstream would be based on a unified social network (USN), a single network that provides social data to other sites as a service. A service model allows many social networks to be linked together, letting them share both content and the nature of the relationships of the people who use them." 

I'm wondering whether Michael might share some insights about legal issues that will need to be addressed by businesses who enter into agreements with others businesses to share personal information about their users and online practices. In reading through information presented about the Google product, it was suggested that user actions would be regulated by business agreements. many decisions are going to be made for individual users would be made for the user by the business owners and operators. It was suggested that users would only need to specify, "as an afterthought", who would be able to see personal informaton and what services would host it. This is a major change in practice from the manner in which users are currently using Google services, particularly those related to the capture and exchange of personal information with other entities (government agencies including law enforcement, public and private sector businesses, private citizens). 

/Gail

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Gail D. Taylor, M.Ed.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student
Educational Psychology Teaching Assistant
Library & Information Science Research Assistant

"Technology enables man to gain control
over everything except technology." -- 
Unknown