Big data and Privacy?

The last post in our class blog: It's not just what you share or what your friends share .. is very intriguing. Who will use the information we share or others share about us? Is there any future for privacy in the Web 2.0?

Scary, isn't it?

I would like to discuss privacy issue not from individual viewpoint but more on how our personal information is being used by third parties such as companies or websites. It leads me to one popular term: BIG DATA.

According to webopedia:
"Big data is a buzzword, or catch-phrase, used to describe a massive volume of both structured and unstructured data that is so large it is difficult to process using traditional database and software techniques. In most enterprise scenarios the volume of data is too big or it moves too fast or it exceeds current processing capacity. Despite these problems, big data has the potential to help companies improve operations and make faster, more intelligent decisions."

I found a very interesting discussion about big data and privacy issue at WNPR (Connecticut public radio) online news streaming: Can Big Data and Privacy Coexist?.



Screen-captured from WNPR website


You can listen to the 49 minutes discussion about this issue between:

• Jim Stodder - Professor of management at Rensselaer Institute of Technology in Hartford
• Viktor Mayer-Schönberger - Professor at the Oxford Internet Institute and co-author of the book Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think
• Oren Etzioni - CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intellegence and a pioneer of big data
• Sara M. Watson - Technology critic; Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University

An eyeopener discussion! Worth the minutes :)