Some interesting comments from Peter Fleischer in this article today. He is Google's global privacy counsel. Towards the end of the article he is quoted as saying that the current generation is one which is in transition between the ways in which we managed our pre-digital identities, and the ways in which we will come to manage our digital ones.
He predicts that both the technology to do this and people's attitudes will evolve over the next handful of years. I agree that it will do so markedly from the perspective of the end-user - though you will find plenty who believe that it is already too late to put the toothpaste back in that particular tube.
I will be very interested to see whether that pace of change is matched by practical and relevant legislation in this area. I suspect that, in that sense, William Gibson has definitely got it right:
"The future is already here. It's just not widely distributed yet."
Posted by racingsnake
@ 06:25 PM GMT+00:00
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Selective silence, at least.
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett is cricitised in this article today for allegedly failing to engage in a meaningful parliamentary discussion in advance of an imminent EU summit meeting. It seems to me that reticence about our political relationship with the European Union is nothing new.
If you go on holiday to other EU countries it's not uncommon to see, for instance, billboards for construction projects with a note that the work is part-funded by the EU. I've seen them in France, Italy, Spain and Germany, for instance. I can't remember ever seeing one in the UK.
And it's not because the EU doesn't subsidise us - though one might be forgiven for attributing it to that, given the rarity of any mention of EU funding for UK projects. In the period from 2000-2006 the UK received €15.85bn from the EU's Structural Funds. For the period from 2007-2013, it will receive €9.6bn - and yet if the topic of Britain's 'net contribution' comes up, it's generally only discussed in terms of the rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher 23 years ago.
The upcoming summit will deal, in part, with what to do about Germany's current attempts to use its leadership of the Union to revive the stalled EU Constitution. I'd like to think that topic would be approached with more openness that we seem to see on the matter of EU subsidy.
Posted by racingsnake
@ 12:45 PM GMT+00:00
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