Community Matters

A lot has been written (like at the Mercury News or at Forbes) and said (for example at NPR) about the subpoena that Google refuses to follow, that asks them to hand over data on searches to the US government. Most articles wonder if the US government is overstepping its rights by demanding these data, but the Washington Post, among others, point out another angle of this story that I find equally interesting (and a little less scary for a non-citizen, living in the US, to discuss in his public blog (or for that matter, in any private phone call, as the NSA scandal tells us)):

If we follow Google’s vision of web based computing, where all your data resides on Google’s server and you use a browser to get access to your data. Whether it’s Gmail or Google Analytics - things that are inherently yours and at least some of which might be private, are suddenly not only not in your direct control, but more importantly are conveniently pooled at one place with similar data of many others for “easy” access to interested parties. Be it the government, be it hackers, be it a profit oriented enterprise looking for new ways to woo advertisers.

Yes, not having your data locally solves some issues. You don’t have to worry about backups (assuming they do a good job at the service provider - oh, btw, since you don’t pay for the service and don’t really have a contract for it - do you really understand how diligent they are about backups? - and have you noticed that for some off the services you cannot make a local backup of the data, your data, even if you were so inclined?). You can access your data from almost any computer almost anywhere, the services are actually quite functional, well designed and sleek (I’m bothered to admit that I am using Google Analytics myself for my personal blog and likely soon for this one as well - it’s functional and provides you lots of insight into your audience; much more than the freely available local analysis packages that I have found).

Still, I’d really prefer to have my data local. To control my own backup schedule. To not have to trust a corporation to keep my private and personal information just that, private and personal. I’m always amused when Microsoft Money asks me if I want to store my data on Microsoft’s website (well, it’s not really asking - it’s actually trying to force me to do that, as some functionality is restricted if you don’t want to hand all of your personal financial data, including credit card numbers and investment activities, to Microsoft…)

Call me old fashioned, but I like the illusion that my data is actually mine.

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I hope this was helpful - if not, please leave a comment and let me know why! Were you searching for something else? Did I miss an important aspect?

My main blog focuses mainly on my personal life and my family - the people interested in those topic are quite clearly not the same people who’d be interested in my thoughts on technology, open source, and the communities around them. Which is why I decided to split my blog in two…