The internet: inherent tension, four freedoms

We experience a world where smart, hand held devices connected via high bandwidth networks have dramatically changed how we do business, socialize, and spend money. Until 1998, the cell phone was the most rapid adoption of technology in human history, over taken by the internet that was even faster. However, our laws, regulations and procedures to protect our interests have lagged. Purposely so, as every enterprise involved is making too much money by not addressing the tensions that exist. And all the while, villains intent on stealing and wreaking havoc are doing damage not only to individuals, but to enterprises themselves.

Source: The accelerating rate of technology adoption

Inherent tension

The competing interests on the internet are leaving individuals and enterprises at risk. Individuals may use the internet to freely share their thoughts, but when it comes to transactions of value, they desire privacy. Enterprises want to monetize the internet and the information they receive as well as secure themselves from potential losses of their intellectual property or otherwise sensitive information. These three interests, privacy for the individual and security and monetization for the enterprise conflict with each other.

Individuals lose their privacy and can lose their identity to their great detriment; the enterprises that store the data and are responsible for the lose are not liable, and yet the enterprise is free to profit from the individual’s data without compensating them. Meanwhile the customer typically paid for a product initially or did not intend or wish to give up their personal data for further use.

Enterprises are vulnerable to attacks and loss of customer information for which there may be regulatory penalties. Enterprises are vulnerable to loss of their own intellectual property or access to their assets via a denial of service. They are also at risk to lose their data or having it manipulated. Due to attacks, enterprises can lose their sterling reputation, customers, and revenue. However, enterprises are profiting from using and distributing customer data from a transaction to generate revenue without having to compensate the individuals.

Individuals in contrast want to transact casual, professional, monetary, and personal business without the penalty of placing their identity, their personal information, or personal habits at risk. These risks include exposure, exploitation by enterprises or exploitation by those stealing from the individual or enterprise.

It is time to address these tensions in a meaningful way, as we are losing the internet as a means for conducting our affairs. It’s too porous and ill-suited for the use we have put it to and yet our economic dependency is now quite high. We can’t turn the internet off, we can’t live with its deficiencies.

It is time to address how we conduct out personal and business affairs on the internet in a manner that supports the collective privacy, security, and monetization interests.

To relieve these inherent tensions, anonymity on the internet needs to end. For this we need human attribution to be embedded in the internet. The current internet can be reserved for the exchange casual information, but beware any transaction or meaningful activity you undertake there. Otherwise, an attributed internet has merit as an option for your transactions of value and more important activities. To that end, find below four freedoms that would govern a more secure, more sustainable internet.

The four internet freedoms

In his quintessential speech on American values, President Roosevelt outlined four freedoms that all people should have. (Roosevelt, 1941 speech to Congress)  In the sincerest form of flattery, the following borrows from the structure of this tour de force with four internet freedoms.

Freedom of speech and expression – You should have this freedom on the internet unless you break a law, say with hate speech or inciteful speech that would be forbidden in the physical world.

Freedom of identity and ownership – The free internet is not free, it costs you your identity, your right to compensation for your speech, your actions, it costs you your privacy, it is not free. The lie that the internet is free is an excuse for enterprises to take your information in exchange for their “free” services and monetize your personal information for their profit. And even when you pay for something on the internet, the real value of the transaction is not what you bought, but the information you provided, not only to the enterprise who collected and resells that information hundreds of times over, but to anyone who can steal your information from the enterprise and exploit it to your detriment. The internet is not free, it’s dangerous and expensive.

Who owns your tweet? You wrote it. Who owns your email, you wrote it? Who should see your email, in the physical world, only the recipient. In the physical world, there are laws penalizing anyone, including the mail carrier looking at your mail. Why not laws and penalties for doing the same on the internet? Who owns your medical history, your insurance information, you, or the people you provide the information to over the internet? Just because you require service should not mean that you relinquish your ownership of your data and the right to deny it’s copying or use or to demand whatever compensation you see fit. It is of course your information.

Freedom from fear – That a company will lose your information and put your lifestyle at risk, use your information in a way you would not approve of or as intended, use your information without monetary compensation. Free from the fear of being bullied by some unknown person, fear of your children being exploited or being subjected to any manner of ugly behavior or material.

Freedom from unwanted attention – Freedom of speech is important, so is the freedom to walk away from that speech. To turn it down, to decide that that person is not someone you wish to have impose themselves on you again, unless and until you change your mind. This would be true of any individual or representative of an enterprise, you should have a safe, quiet place on the internet where you interact with those you choose. The default should be opting out, the affirmative act should be opting in. If someone disturbs you once, you should have the ability to keep them from disturbing you ever again. Ignore user, the actual human being, not the phony email address they manufacture every other day. You have the right to know your antagonist if they have become one, at least enough to keep them from your safe, quiet space on the internet.