June 13th, 2009

Six things to know if your Facebook username has been squatted

Posted by Denise Howell @ 8:34 am

Categories: Defamation, Identity, Live Web, Right of publicity, Social networking, Trademark

Tags: Facebook, Facebook Usernames, Squatting, Denise Howell

Here are some things to bear in mind about username squatting on Facebook.

1. I’m guessing Mike Arrington can get this fixed with a phone call or two. (via Dave Winer) If you’re not him…
2. You may have missed the fact there was, before username registration opened up, a form to complete for “preventing [your] trademarks from being registered as usernames.” That form is now closed, and links off instead to Facebook’s non-copyright IP Infringement Form. (Given its wording and stated purpose, I doubt it would have helped with non-trademark-registered individual names anyway.)
3. Facebook (like Twitter, etc.) is not ICANN, and the UDRP has no application to its vanity URLs. Facebook’s terms of service, however, mandate that users not “take any action on Facebook that infringes someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law.”
4. Many jurisdictions, (including California where Facebook is headquartered), restrict or prohibit unauthorized use of a person’s “name, image, likeness or other unequivocal aspects of one’s identity.”
5. It’s not “squatting” if someone else happens to share an individual’s name and was able to register it or a variation.
6. All that said, it seems one’s first recourse as the victim of a username squatter is the aforementioned non-copyright IP Infringement Form.

I’d be interested in hearing about people’s experiences with this — whether it turns out to be streamlined and effective or frustrating and a pain. Let me know and I’ll update.

Previously: Chris Pirillo is socialsquatted; does the law care?

July 2nd, 2008

Care to spend your holiday weekend policing directory listings?

Posted by Denise Howell @ 11:57 am

Categories: Anonymity, Identity, Privacy, Social networking, Trust, Virtual worlds

Tags: Reunion.com LLC, Numedeon, Inc., Whyville, Privacy, Identity, David Lazurus, Ray Everett-Church, Denise Howell

I’m not a fan in general of sites that create a listing or profile for you, hoping you’ll eventually claim and/or correct it. This tactic, neither user-centric nor user-driven, is insidious for at least three reasons:

1. inaccuracies proliferate,
2. privacy is frequently jeopardized, and
3. users are required to invest considerable time and supply yet more personal data in an effort to remedy 1 and 2.

David Lazarus gives examples of these sorts of problems in his Los Angeles Times piece today, Social networking site divulges child’s personal information. He tells of a mom who looked up her Reunion.com listing just to see what it might say, and learned it included her toddler son’s name and their family’s home town: things she would rather not have readily associated with one another. This occurred even though Reunion.com says it creates its listings only from “publicly available” information, including that purchased from a data broker. When the Times came calling, Reunion.com removed the reference and now says “measures have been put in place to make it easier for people to have information deleted from the site,” though I don’t see much here that bears this out.

Lazarus tapped privacy guru Ray Everett-Church for his thoughts on the matter. There goes the weekend:

[I]t’s up to parents to monitor online directories such as Reunion.com and make sure their kids’ names aren’t present.

Everett-Church also suggests parents do everything they can to keep children’s information out of corporate databases — presumably by using false names when subscribing to magazines, using online services, etc.

There are market opportunities around these pain points. The value of brokered data plummets once enough people game and/or end-run that system, whereas the value of systems and relationships that meet expectations and demands around accuracy, privacy, and time efficiency goes through the roof.

Elsewhere in the L.A. Times, Numedeon Inc.’s Jen Sun thinks there’s an upside to ruses run by some Whyville users who con others out of online goods and funds in exchange for nonexistent rewards: “It’s a learning experience for the victim not to be so gullible, not to be motivated by greed, because the scammers use greed against you.” I hope we don’t have to wait for all the nine year-olds to grow up in order to figure this stuff out.

(Image by LabGP & SigOther’s, CC Attribution-2.0)

April 23rd, 2008

Upcoming panel on exploiting the social graph

Posted by Denise Howell @ 12:18 pm

Categories: Attention, Conferences, Identity, Licenses, Live Web, Privacy, Social networking, User generated content

Tags: Social Media, OnHollywood, Denise Howell

At a conference I attended last month on social media law (I have some interesting notes I’ll post soon), I was struck by how lawyers for social media giants such as Facebook, MySpace, Google, find speedy ways to accommodate powerful copyright holders on infringement issues. When it comes to concerns over exploitation of user data, however, their solution is to draft the most draconian terms of service imaginable (knowing no one pays real attention), consider themselves legally covered when user complaints crop up, and occasionally ratchet down the terms or otherwise execute a subtle course change when things begin to get ugly: as with Beacon, or Billy Bragg, or, presumably soon, Google Reader.

We’re going to further explore this topic in a panel I’ll moderate at OnHollywood on June 10th. What do you think about different approaches to managing user data? If none of the poll answers fit or you want to expand, please comment.

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January 26th, 2008

Follow-up: Build-A-Bear says it will take privacy suggestions to heart

Posted by Denise Howell @ 5:00 pm

Categories: Anonymity, Identity, Minors, Privacy

Tags: Information, Build-A-Bear, Privacy, Parents, Children, Denise Howell

There were lots of reactions to my last post about Build-A-Bear luring kids and parents into divulging personal information they might otherwise, in other contexts, guard more closely. While some responses channeled Scott McNealy, most seemed to get that my beef was not with the fact of the data collection, or the uses set forth in Build-A-Bear’s privacy policy, but with doing it in what amounts to a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing manner. Here’s a sampling of the subsequent discussion:

• Cory Doctorow called the practice "private information seduction."
• The Consumerist agreed it "seem[ed] sort of…sinister."
• Skippy dot net reacted similarly to his in-store experience at Build-A-Bear.
• Andrew at Changing Way quipped that "the Bear can be more seductive than the Beacon."
• Curmudgeon-in-Training pointed out that "kids, and parents, are getting numb to this disclosure of very personal info for the most mundane of reasons."
• Izzy Neis (who blogs about "Online Communities, Entertainment, Kid Empowerment, and Media Safety") worried that "people forget about the kind of information they share about their kids."
• And Security Hitman observed that "corporations are setting an early expectation with young children that giving out personally information is okay. "

The good news is that shortly after posting my piece I heard from Dave Finnegan, Build-A-Bear’s "Chief InBearmation Officer." Kitschy executive designations aside, you’ve got to be impressed by a company that responds so quickly, directly, and receptively to criticism; I am, anyway. Dave had no problem with my posting our email exchange in its entirety, and you’ll find it after the jump. The upshot is I gave him several suggestions as to how I thought the situation could be improved, and he told me they "will definitely take [my] suggestions to heart," and "will review this information with [their] privacy committee." So, the company gets big points in my book for listening and responding to the conversation, and will earn bigger points still if the next time a birthday party brings me Build-A-Bear’s way, I join my son at the in-store kiosks and see my suggestions have been implemented. I’ll certainly let you know if that happens.

(Images by sarae, CC Attribution-No Derivs 2.0)

Read the rest of this entry »

January 21st, 2008

Harvesting data from children with cuddly creatures and cutesy keyboards

Posted by Denise Howell @ 2:16 pm

Categories: Anonymity, Identity, Minors, Privacy, Social networking, Virtual worlds

Tags: Information, Parents, Children, Privacy, Build-A-Bear, Denise Howell

And you thought Beacon is (was) creepy.

Yesterday I had my first experience at a Build-A-Bear Workshop store. Build-A-Bear, if you’re not familiar with it, is a publicly traded company headquartered in St. Louis, MO, with some 350 retail outlets worldwide. It’s irresistible to boys and girls alike, if the birthday party we attended was any indication. Kids can choose one of over 30 different styles of animal, stuff it onsite using big yellow machines filled with flying fluff, carefully add a small heart to bring the animal “to life,” and customize to their heart’s content (and their parents’ wallets’ horror) from a stupefying collection of sounds, clothes, shoes, and accessories that include miniature skateboards and MP3 players.

All good, clean — if decidedly consumer-culture focused, and potentially bank-breaking — fun. Until you get to the last step in the process, which had me nostalgic for (egad) the Cabbage Patch Kids. Who as I recall were discharged from their mythical birthplace without asking for their new owner’s home address.

You see, each Build-A-Bear critter is issued a “birth certificate,” which is generated after the kids — and hopefully their parents, though that didn’t seem to be making a bit of difference on the common sense front — visit a bank of computers. These are big orangey-purple affairs, sort of Dr. Seussian in presentation. The keyboard buttons include stars and other colored shapes to make data input all the easier and more intuitive for youngsters. In fact, the computer-plus-keyboard experience is very close (no doubt intentionally so) to something children and their parents might have experienced in a kids’ museum, library, or school. Before their new friend can get its birth certificate, the kids are prompted to enter a host of very personal personal information: birth date, home address, gender, phone, and email among them. Along the way is the option to “skip” some of this input, but unlike what we’re used to in the world of online retail forms, there’s no effort to communicate what data is “required” for the transaction to proceed, and what’s “optional.” The overall effect is to sideline the privacy-savviness that might otherwise accompany the parent and/or child. I sat there and watched parent after parent prompt their kids to flex their memory muscles and practice their computer skills: "Ok Timmy, now, what’s our address? What’s your birthday? Do you remember our phone number? Good typing!!"

It’s not until after the kids have given up all this data, most often with their parents help and lulled consent (though there’s no requirement that parents participate at all), that Build-A-Bear gives its customers a copy of its privacy policy, which comes tucked away in the packaging folks take home.

I really don’t have any problem with Build-A-Bear’s privacy policy, or the tie-ins with the virtual world (Build-A-Bearville) the company hopes your child will visit with his or her new stuffed friend. But though the policy looks good on paper, this is a case where the execution stinks. Parents and kids should not be urged or encouraged to give up personal data, and when they’re asked to do so there should be some up-front reminders as to what is happening.

Cory Doctorow likes to tell an anecdote about how today’s children are becoming more and more inured to invasions of privacy. In his case, children in line at Disneyland thought it odd when he refused to supply a fingerprint. Here, kids are learning it’s ok for a store to know quite a bit about them. Parents should make a stink about this sort of thing and be on the lookout for it.

(Bonus link: Kim Pallister, Can a stuffed bear hold the secret to game piracy?)

(Images by gitb and Brittany G, CC Attribution-2.0)

August 13th, 2007

Lawgarithms Links for 8/13/07

Posted by Denise Howell @ 11:24 am

Categories: Attention, Copyright, Identity, Lawsuits, Licenses, Links, Live Web, Social networking, Trademark, Video, Virtual worlds

Tags: Google Inc., BitTorrent, Google Reader, Blog, Lawgarithms, Denise Howell

Remember that between entries here you can keep up with the Live Web (and other) issues I’m spotting by subscribing to my Google Reader Starred Items. Among the links now playing:

Two-word license agreement: “F— YOU!”, from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

Fair Use for YouTube & MySpace Users, from Slashdot by Zonk

What bloggers should know about copyright protection for their writing and photographs, from IP Law Daily by mamarant

Trademarks FAQ, from Blawg IT-Internet Patent, Trademark and Copyright Issues with Attorney Brett Trout by Brett Trout

Catching Up: Derivative Works and Fair Use, from IPTAblog by Andrew Raff

Avatar Rights, from Wonderland by Alice Taylor

Proposal to Make Suing Anonymous Avatars Harder, from Virtually Blind - Virtual Law | Legal Issues That Impact Virtual Worlds by Benjamin Duranske

Lawsuit Filed Against Second Life Avatar, from Top Tech News by Phil Davis

Prophesies, from Doc Searls Weblog by Doc Searls

A Guide to Google’s APIs, from Mashable! by Adam Ostrow

It All Comes Together: The getting good with BitTorrent roundup, from Lifehacker by Adam Pash

Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk31), from TorrentFreak by Ernesto

Stop! Don’t click “I Agree” before you read the Terms of Service, from Yap 3.0 by Robin

YouTube, Google Street View: the copyright, trademark, AND privacy trolls are coming!!, from ZDNet Blogs by Russell Shaw

Getting data OUT of Facebook, from ZDNet Blogs by Dennis Howlett

Electronic Filing Of Copyright Applications Has Arrived (at least for beta testers), from Clock Tower Law Group’s shared items in Google Reader by Aaron Silverstein

Internet Vote-Swapping Legal, Says 9th Circuit, from Threat Level - Wired Blogs by Sarah Lai Stirland

Facebook, Identity, and OpenID, from Ministry of Intrigue by daniel@andrlik.org (Daniel Andrlik)

Let’s kill all the lawyers: web-based negotiation platform seeks to revolutionize the creation of contracts, from Online Guide to Mediation by Diane Levin

Taking Intangible Electronic Files is Criminal Fraud–NM v. Kirby, from Technology & Marketing Law Blog by Eric Goldman

Video Site Veoh Sues To Stop Universal, from Top Tech News by Richard Koman

Surfing your clickstream, from ZDNet Blogs by Ed Gottsman

Hyperlinking & the law: IMPACT guide to the essentials, from IMPACT® by Alex (note the focus of this piece is UK/EU)

August 2nd, 2007

Social networks: what goes out, what goes in

Posted by Denise Howell @ 4:28 pm

Categories: Attention, Collaboration, Conferences, Copyright, Identity, Live Web, Podcasting, Social networking, User generated content, Video

Tags: Social Networking, Attention, Intellectual Property, Identity, Denise Howell

“Social Networking 3.0″ was on the agenda this afternoon at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit. This one was a “must watch” for me, as will be Dan Farber’s later today on “The Democratization of Media.” You can follow along with the conference’s live Webcast here.

Moderator Charlene Li, senior analyst for Forrester Research, was joined by Travis Katz, senior vice president and general manager of MySpace International; Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook; Rich Rosenblatt, CEO of Demand Media and former MySpace executive; Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning; and Karl Jacob, CEO of Wallop. Dan blogged the panel on Between the Lines, and, as he says, most of the discussion focused the future of social networks. I was most interested in the comments concerning social networks and identity, attention, and intellectual property.

On the identity front, Charlene Li stated the truism that maintaining identities across different social networks is “a pain,” and wondered when the social networks we see today will become more open. Facebook’s Dustin Moskovitz recognized that portable identities are necessary, but didn’t go into particulars of how Facebook is or will be addressing this. Rich Rosenblatt said they talk internally at Demand Media about “the portable profile,” and says Demand Media is working on letting users log in with a single profile then select from a mix of options as to where they want to be. (My impression was he was not talking about navigating out of the Demand Media environment.) MySpace’s Travis Katz is interested by the notion of OpenID and a single, portable identity, but thinks it’s “complicated” to make it happen. And Gina Bianchini challenged the notion that social networking users want a single, inflexible identity to follow them around: “Your wakeboarding social network is fundamentally different from your independent journalist one. People in the real world have different sides of themselves that they show to different groups, different people, different communities.” She makes a good point, and I think the digital identity community is on top of that nuance. Though Tantek Çelik Twittered me to ask about their plans, if any, for using microformats as an open portability standard, sadly I didn’t get the nod from the microphone handler. [Update:] See Fred Oliveira: “A good start: A few social networks already have microformatted data on user profiles (Last.FM, Dopplr, Twitter and Cork’d), meaning any other network could easily consume this data when you sign-up, saving you a load of trouble - which is exactly what Dopplr (being smart as it is) does. Now if other networks would tag along, that would be superb.”

Travis Katz, Dustin Moskovitz, Rich Rosenblatt, Gina Bianchini, Karl Jacob

On the attention front, in response to the question “Where’s the money going to come from?” the panelists answered with nearly a single voice: targeted advertising. But transactions based on user desires and intentions are on the radar as well:

Travis Katz: the advertising model on social networks is going to be here a long time. Other models will probably emerge too. MySpace is looking at ecommerce models. You always feel better buying from a trusted source. When you talk about transactions between individuals, there’s a commerce opportunity there too.

Karl Jacob: Wallop is all transaction, no advertising. We believe there’s a world down the road where you buy the things you need to dress up your profile and the applications you want to use. Akin to the ringtone market.

Gina Bianchini: If I had to choose between the ringtone market and targeted advertising, I’d choose targeted advertising. There’s a huge opportunity to bring what is happening with AdWords into social networks. If you take a monetization model that’s working today and generating significant amounts of money, and apply it to a market that is only going to get bigger and more sophisticated as far as targeted advertising, it gets very interesting.

Finally, on the subject of intellectual property, when asked what was missing from the social networking ecosystem and what he would invest in if given the opportunity, Rich Rosenblatt commented on the need for what I would call a “third estate” of media: outside the copyright and use limitations of the products of the big studios, labels, and publishing houses, and yet a step above one person’s photos, films, etc. made primarily for personal use. A class of media produced and designed for Web distribution. Gina Bianchini challenged the notion that “amateur” media can’t comprise this third estate:

Rich Rosenblatt: We’d like to see more content actually made for the Internet. There are two layers of content. Studio generated (lots of trouble and fighting there), and user generated but not usable (one guy’s photos of himself). We’d like to see content that more than a few people want to see.

Gina Bianchini: I would argue that that’s happening today. On YouTube some of that gets lost in the crowd, but put it in a community of really interested people, and it’s very powerful.

Rich Rosenblatt, to Gina: But if you could buy wakeboarding content for your wakeboarding social network, wouldn’t that be great?

Gina Bianchini: From my perspective, one of the benefits of social networks is you and your friends can watch your own stuff. Another benefit is the good stuff rises to the top. I would rather have the material be truly user generated.

Karl Wallop: the good content and the good applications will all come from the current and up and coming generations of users.

I have long thought Creative Commons moves us significantly closer to this third estate media ecosystem, but doesn’t quite take us all the way there. John Palfrey points this out in his post today on blog scraping and the ongoing licensing/compensation gap.

alwayson, alwayson2007

July 28th, 2007

Chris Pirillo is socialsquatted; does the law care?

Posted by Denise Howell @ 9:04 pm

Categories: Defamation, Free speech, Identity, Live Web, Social networking, Tags, Trademark

Tags: Defamation, Law, Chris Pirillo, Denise Howell

Chris Pirillo is on Pownce at pownce.com/chrispirillo, and has 69 friends. Or wait, that’s not Chris. I can scarcely catalog the related legal considerations, which include:

Can Chris stop someone from using his name and likeness without his consent? Possibly, under right of publicity laws, but the ones I’m most familiar with preclude unauthorized commercial uses, and the jurisdictional variations are a nightmare.

Can’t Chris sue for defamation if someone is falsifying things he supposedly said and did? Perhaps, but parody is a First Amendment defense to defamation.

Is this parody? No one here has identified themselves as the "fake" Chris Pirillo. Under trademark law apparently, “A parody must convey two simultaneous–and contradictory messages; that it is the original, but also that it is not the original and is instead a parody. To the extent that it does only the former but not the latter, it is not only a poor parody but also vulnerable under trademark law, since the consumer will be confused.” From Cliffs Notes, Inc. v. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, 886 F. 2d 490 (2d Cir. 1989). (Via Chilling Effects) (I’m not sure if the same requirement extends to parody in general, and haven’t quickly found anything on point.)

Does Chris have trademark rights in “Chris Pirillo?” Let’s assume yes. And let’s assume he wanted to put a stop to someone else’s use of pownce.com/chrispirillo. Do anti-cybersquatting laws extend to other level domains? Is something to the right of .com, etc. even an other level domain? Would Chris have recourse against Pownce, the faux Chris Pirillo Pownce user, or both?

How about tags?

(My head hurts.)

June 10th, 2007

Section 230 immunity for case-based identity/reputation systems?

Posted by Denise Howell @ 12:23 am

Categories: Attention, Defamation, Identity, Lawsuits, Search, Social networking, Trust, User generated content

Tags: Section 230, Denise Howell, Avvo, Joe Andrieu, John Henry Browne, Eric Goldman, Roommates.com, case-based identity

As an example of someone who thinks he owns his reputation data, here’s lawyer John Henry Browne, threatening to sue new lawyer rating service Avvo over a rating he says is unjustifiably low. That link comes via Joe Andrieu on the Project VRM list, who earlier this week had these musings about reputation as case-based identity:

Perhaps considering reputation as case-based identity, we can start to outline the components required for such case-based systems to work:

* transaction data (potentially including opinions of others)
* algorithmic evaluation
* refutation process

These may not be the definitive requirements for a reputation system, but they seem to be present in the working systems I know of and are perhaps a good starting point.

For the record, I think it is an even bet as to whether or not personal opinions can be effectively integrated as “transaction history” in a case-based identity system, given the challenges of emotions, grudges, slander, and the non-provability of opinions.

It is also a near certainty that for certain types of case-based identity that the user will never be able to actually fully control the data-set. For example, I could significantly improve my credit score if I had read-write control over that data-set. Unfortunately, that would render the current system completely ineffective. Perhaps a new one could emerge, but there are other domains, such as criminal records, etc., where an authoritative reputation requires a data-set with limited or heavily moderated user control–otherwise everyone would erase those pesky traffic violations.

Against this context, the kind of ownership and control over one’s reputation data attorney Browne and others are threatening to enforce in court may find itself running up against Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields providers of interactive computer services from liability for simply filtering and/or distilling information provided by others. Though a California district court recently skirted the issue of whether Section 230 immunizes search engines for the reputational consequences of their ranking and placement algorithms, the situation is analogous. It’s interesting that unlike the search engine cases, these attorneys aren’t complaining about reputational slippage; they’re saying Avvo’s rating system has harmed them from the get-go.

What’s not clear from the lawyers’ demand letter is the legal basis for the threatened lawsuit. Defamation I assume, but what’s defamatory? Individual components of the rating or the rating itself? Avvo says it merely synthesizes data from third party sources, including the subject lawyers if they choose to participate in the process (e.g., by claiming and editing “unlocked” portions of their profiles or reporting incorrect data). The key question for Section 230 purposes will be whether Avvo and other reputational ranking systems are embellishing or enhancing third party material (or creating new material) by virtue of the way it is collected, processed, and displayed. (See Professor Eric Goldman’s excellent post on the recent Ninth Circuit decision/”hairball” that is Fair Housing Counsel v. Roommates.com.)

[Update:] Declan McCullagh has a good piece on Avvo, particularly the section on the difficulty of rating lawyers. Declan points to some of the more eye-opening ratings for folks like U.S. Supreme Court Justices: “When asked about Justice Ginsburg’s lackluster rating, [Avvo CEO Mark Britton] replied, ‘Arguably, her rating is a bit less efficient.’” Arguably. Arguably, things like peer endorsements and client ratings should operate, um, differently when it comes to jurists or legal scholars.

Speaking of which, my own unedited, uncontributed-to rating is 6.3 — the same as Larry Lessig’s, and just two clicks below Justices Ginsburg and Alito (that we all have the same “experience” rating — 3 — is nothing short of comical; Avvo also has my location wrong, which tells me their last poll of CA bar information was several months ago).

Adding to Declan’s thoughts on the slippery nature of this kind of reputation ranking, it will be interesting to see whether and how Avvo will attempt to police the inevitable gaming of its peer endorsement and client rating components. I haven’t yet heard of LinkedIn (which also has an endorsement mechanism) having to contend with this issue, but there are some key differences: people choose to be in LinkedIn (lawyers are in Avvo whether they like it or not, and there doesn’t appear to be an opt-out), and LinkedIn isn’t rating anybody, or attempting to tell would-be clients or customers “how well” a member could handle a piece of work.

[Update, 6/14]: The suit has been filed, see John Cook’s coverage and Regina Mullen’s discussion/analysis of the complaint.

[Update, 6/18]: Santa Clara law professor Eric Goldman weighs in on the Avvo case, Section 230, and Roommates.com:

Let’s put all of this aside and focus on the doctrinal issue that seems preeminent: 47 USC 230. To the extent that the plaintiffs seek to hold Avvo liable under state consumer protection laws for third party content, this lawsuit should be cleanly preempted by 47 USC 230. As an example, I’m reasonably confident that eBay would argue vociferously that its numerical feedback rating is protected by 230 (among other doctrines).

But it’s hardly clear that Avvo gets the benefit of the statute. First, arguably, the lawsuit is based on the word choices that Avvo made in describing/characterizing the data and the output, not the underlying third party data. Second, this case goes straight to the doctrinal murkiness of the Roommates.com case. Recall Reinhardt’s reformulation that Roommates.com lost 230 protection because “Roommate categorizes, channels and limits the distribution of information, thereby creating another layer of information.” Isn’t this exactly what Avvo does too? I sure hope the Ninth Circuit cleans up the Roommates.com hairball before cases like this test its limits.

Also, Carolyn Elefant and I joined the named plaintiff John Henry Browne on the Lawyer2Lawyer show to discuss the case (MP3; feed). Carolyn made some great points about how the legal profession and its institutions (particularly state bar associations) have dropped the ball on making this kind of information accessible (implying I believe that even a system that may be less than perfect/still getting the kinks out is better than nothing).

June 6th, 2007

If reputation is money in the bank, who owns the PIN?

Posted by Denise Howell @ 10:17 am

Categories: Attention, Copyright, Defamation, Identity, Lawsuits, Patent, Privacy, Trademark, Trust

Tags: Attention, Reputation, Denise Howell, Michael O'Connor Clarke

As evidenced by the many lawsuits against Google concerning PageRank or other search result (read reputational) slippage, the notion that you own your digital reputation — even if it is at bottom a collaborative work that begins with your actions, but thereafter depends on the reactions of others — has legs. Michael O’Connor Clarke wrote an interesting post along these lines at Uninstalled called Web 3.0 and Personal Reputation Management:

I’m still not quite sure where I’m going with this, but I feel the need for some secure, personal repository that would hold all of my connections and “whuffie” together. I want to keep my whuffie in my wallet - but not in a Microsoft Passport/Hailstorm kind of way. Ack, no.

It should include most elements of OpenID, a lot of FOAF, and maybe some of the stuff being worked on by the Attention Trust people.

I want it in XML, of course, and I want it to be incredibly easy to implement and use, as secure as it possibly can be, and extensible without being completely unmanageable.

Naturally, I’d want everyone to adopt it – from eBay to Amazon, Facebook to Flickr, Google to Microsoft to Yahoo.

Critically: no vendor (or government) can own it.

My reputation and relationships are mine. They’re the sum of the gifts of friendship and respect people grant to one another over the years; the currency we earn through our life and work. And like the other, folding kind of currency, I should be able to carry my stock of links, linkages and laurels with me from one Web experience to the next.

In law, the intrinsic value of one’s reputation crops up in the mishmash of defamation, intentional interference, and right of publicity principles. Privacy too, since reputation depends as well on what one does not reveal. (You should, or wait you shouldn’t, see the dishevelled snarl that is my hair right now.) And let’s not forget intellectual property (there’s the “P” word), since copyright, patent, and particularly trademark exist in part to protect the reputational identity that accompanies the acts of creating and doing business.

The Attention Trust says that attention is property, that you own it and can store it where you wish, and that such ownership and the right of control go hand in hand. Michael suggests the same is true of reputation. It’s more difficult for me to get my arms around what the sum total of one’s reputation might be, and whatever it is, whether it matters that it’s a joint and not a solo creation (e.g., Tom Williams‘ act of Facebook-friending Michael and vice versa). However, these seem like mere speed bumps to recognizing rights of ownership and control comparable to those posited for attention.

More from Joe Andrieu.

[Disclosure: I'm on the Board of the Attention Trust.]