海角大神

This has been dubbed 鈥渢he year of Big Data,鈥� meaning a time when online firms such as Facebook 补苍诲听Google are capitalizing聽on聽an unprecedented and vast amount of personal, user-generated聽information.

But the rush to corral, and monetize, that data is also fast聽ushering in a new digital management industry聽built around growing worries over the loss of personal privacy.

鈥淓very day consumers are beginning to pay more attention to this issue,鈥� says Rob D鈥橭vidio, an associate professor of criminal justice and an expert on Internet security at Drexel University in Philadelphia. As more services to tackle the topic appear, 鈥渢hey will not only give聽consumers new tools but they will play an educational role in聽pushing understanding of the larger privacy issues.鈥�

Concerns have been escalating over聽what these Internet giants are聽doing with user data. Everyone from the White House and the Federal Trade Commission to the EU, and digital rights groups from the US to Europe, have been tussling with the problem of how to get online companies to respect consumers' privacy rights.

So far, voluntary moves by players such as Facebook and Google to address privacy concerns聽鈥� notably a 鈥淒o Not Track鈥� button that has no enforcement mechanism behind it 鈥� lack聽teeth, say critics.

Private companies such as Los Angeles-based CloudCapture, which launched聽Wednesday, and Abine, which debuted its 鈥淒o Not Track Plus鈥� application in February,聽see a ripe opportunity to turn聽the same complex technology that was developed to聽mine personal data into a tool consumers can use to fight its abuse.

鈥淭his is a repeat of what we saw at the beginning of the Internet,鈥� says Bill Kerrigan, chief executive officer of Abine, a four-year-old聽online security company based in Boston. 鈥淧eople slowly began to聽realize there were things going on all over the Internet they had no understanding about, and the antivirus industry was born.鈥� The same 鈥渁wareness-driving-adoption鈥� cycle is now building behind privacy issues, he says.

鈥淛ust as people began demanding tools to fight computer viruses, they are now waking up to the need to protect their personal privacy online,鈥� Mr. Kerrigan says. 鈥淲e are at a point where consumers want someone working on their behalf.鈥�

More than 580 different technologies are being used to track聽personal data, he notes. Indeed, 73 percent of people using the Internet consider it an invasion of privacy for a search engine to keep聽track聽of searches 补苍诲听use聽that information to personalize future search results, according to a poll by the Pew聽Research Center released聽this past week.聽Only 38 percent of the poll鈥檚 respondents had a general idea of what to do about data about them being collected online.

鈥淐onsumers are beginning to聽understand they need to address the issue,鈥� Kerrigan says.

Abine鈥檚 new app聽and the newly launched CloudCapture聽focus on聽blocking automatic tracking and finding ways to give control back to the user.

鈥淐loudCapture鈥檚 mantra is Block, Capture, Control,鈥� says founder Alex Huf. 鈥淣ow that they've been educated, it's time for users to take control without waiting for governments to do it for them.鈥�

Both聽Abine and CloudCapture聽are installed in the user鈥檚 Internet browser and automatically block all online companies from tracking.聽Users can decide when and where to give out data.

However, 鈥渕ost consumers don鈥檛 understand the value of their personal data, and will willingly give up much in exchange for a quick return,鈥� says Joseph Turow,聽professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and associate dean for Graduate Studies聽at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

鈥淲e have to understand this from the perspective of the beginning of a century of big data,鈥� he says, noting that it is not enough to simply put up聽intermediary companies. 鈥淧eople have to begin to engage with this issue and understand it, because data is the oxygen of the Internet,鈥� he says, adding with a rueful laugh, 鈥渁nd if we don鈥檛 fully understand this it could suffocate us.鈥�

Changing the paradigm is the beginning of understanding, says Huf.

鈥淭he embrace of disruption has always been part of our technology culture,鈥� he says. 鈥淐loudCapture continues that trend by disrupting a monopoly the largest companies have on user data. It empowers the user to turn the tables and force everyone else to play by new rules.鈥�

But tools cannot do聽all the work. Users must take responsibility for their own actions online, says communications professor Ananda Mitra of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.

鈥淲ould you stand in the middle of a ball field and use a megaphone to announce your last night鈥檚 drinking frenzy? Probably not,鈥� he says via e-mail.聽Why would you do the same on a social media site? he asks. The issue is that 鈥渢he user often forgets that what masquerades as 'interpersonal communication' is bordering on 'mass communication.' 鈥�

In the end, he notes,聽鈥渨e need to be responsible for what we say and take the consequences of what we have said. Tools are mere software machines; we are the creators of the discourse.鈥澛�