Writing for Inside Higher Ed, librarian and professor Barbara Fister examines the trade-offs we make when signing up for that new Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn account.
When you participate in such online communities, you give up some of your right to privacy and some aspects of control over the intellectual property you create in that environment. In return, the service provider makes money by selling advertising or other spin-off goods and services that are targeted to fit (their idea of) your particular interests and desires. Somebody’s making money from this deal, and it probably is not you.
So why do we cheerfully hand over our private information? Fister observes:
“Here’s the interesting paradox: The only way to increase the intellectual property value of your identity is to give it away. That’s the only way it can be shared, linked to and recognized by others. Trading a little personal information for a public platform, whether for personal expression or self-promotion (or both), seems a fair exchange.”
Fister draws a parallel with the Open Access movement, which seeks to make academic publications (journal articles, books etc) freely available online.
The “privately owned digital public sphere is a fertile if febrile commons where millions of people play out their identities and share ideas… Scholars and librarians champion the value of free and open exchange of ideas for the public good. It’s time to take those values beyond the academy. If we made an effort to help the public understand the tradeoffs we make to be part of the digital social sphere, maybe we’d all think more critically about how our public identities are formed and exploited – for what they are worth.”