I would like to see lots of public discussion about this.

The Privacy Policy is very important. It means a lot to everyone involved in the development and operation of MemeStreams that we protect and honor the rights of the system's users. We take your rights very seriously. Whenever we make any changes or do anything that we can see having an effect on your privacy rights, we want you involved and we want your feedback. Every step of the way.

Decius and I both feel that all discussion in relation to privacy and users rights should be out in the open, and everyone in the community should have the ability to voice any of their concerns.

MemeStreams is about the users. You. All of you. You make the system. You are the social network. You should be involved in our policy making.

We think the technology we are creating here will be very important and powerful as it grows and matures. A number of things we are doing open up very interesting issues in regard to privacy. These are not cut and dry issues.

The primary reason this has come up, as Decius has said, is because we have realised we have already made a mistake. In this case, we made a promise that we know there is no way we can keep.. Not because of new features we are creating, but rather oversight. We said we would protect information that we have already thought of several means and methods to attain that we cannot prevent. In short, we made a promise that we really can't keep.

As we move forward with projects like the Visual Navigation of MemeStreams, the oversight we made is going to be more and more obvious to everyone. Your reputation data is _not_ entirely private. It can be derived via a number of methods, already. When you make a recommendation, who you got it from can be figured out. Thats where we are in error. Simple thing, not really that bad of a thing either. When you make a recommendation, its public.

One thing I would like to make clear.. This is not us getting lax about our privacy policy, this is us getting serious about our privacy policy. This is us trying make it a public issue, and keep it a public issue.

We are trying to create something special here. The Uber Communication Tool. The Social Network thats aware of itsself, its nature, and its architecture. The smartest of the smart mobs. Its all about empowerment of the users, you. We are only the tool makers. The tools we create will be crafted based upon your feedback and our capabilities.

We want to be good bartenders, so be sure to tell us how our drinks taste.

Decius wrote:
] Please read and rerecommend. I want this to get as much
] coverage on the site as possible, and I want feedback.
]
] Currently the privacy policy says that your reputation tables
] are private. This reflects the fact that I think what you read
] ought to be your own business.
]
] However, what you recommend is... [ Read More (0.5k in body) ]

The Smartest of the Smart Mobs