SocialNetworks2009Workshop/PrivacyAndTrustNotes

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Privacy and Trust and Distributed Architectures and Business Models - Notes

Agenda

Agenda
Privcay and Trust description
Distributed Architectures and Business Models description

Date

2009-01-15

Enabling Trust and Privacy on the Social Web

Alexandre Passant, National University of Ireland, Galway

Talk

How trustworthy is data on the Web? Users should know where content comes from.
Privacy. Should everyone know that I'm attending a possible private corporate meeting with partners? The problem of identity fragmentation is hard to deal with. We need more fine-grained access rights to social data. These rights should evolve automatically.
Using FOAF and SIOC helps leverage things, makes it possible to link data together and gives you more power to control access to it. It also makes it possible to link to billions of RDF triples available out there (DBPedia).
iLOD on the iPhone.
Semantic Web technologies can be used to define rules, policies: "Forward any Skype call during business hours to my mobile phone if the caller proves he's from my LinkedIn network".
The technology stack already exists, but we have to use it and spread it.
We have some proposals for W3C work: A social Web Primer (Social Web Interest Group) focused on semantic web technologies and a trust and privacy incubator group.

Questions/Answers

Q: Do you believe that users are willing to specify such policies?
A: I think that's a matter of user interface. Policies may be complicated, but may look simple for the end user.
Q: What kind of groups do you target with such policies?
Dom: Two points. How complex can policies be? And should users see these policies as such? Your presentation shows that we have the tools.

Towards an OpenID-based solution to the Social Network Interoperability problem

Federico Zani, Asemantics

Talk

Problem statement: How to create, manage and use the information contained in the users own social graph in an independent manner?
It seems that the "walled garden" approach is still the rule, with APIs as the only way to expose, and interlink data.
OpenID is the hammer that makes it possible to break the walls.
We're trying to develop a framework, a social network aggregator Java engine: Gobal Social Platform (GSP). It's an hybrid wrapper to the different social networks. Classes that extend a base "Socialet" class, servlet equivalents that process requests and generate responses. The solution is hybrid, because information that does not fit in the relational model needs to be stored as RDF triples.
What's the difference between this approach and the recent Facebook Connect? Well, our solution is intended to work across silos.

Questions/Answers

Q: 200-300 social networks. How many adapters does that give?
A: We'll provide abstract classes. Any skilled developer can easily create a Converter.
Q: Why would silos provide such an open API?
A: Yes. The REST API is our requirement. There's a need.
Q: Maybe we're using different networks to artificially create different silos. Why do users use different networks?
A: I think different social networks try to dig a vertical, to focus on something in particular that they do well.

A Telecom Italia view on the future of Social networking

Claudio Venezia, Telecom Italia

Talk

This is one of the views within Telecom Italia.
Social networks are "low cost" strong human attention aggregators, and powerful value generators. The costs of deployment for operators is relatively small since they already have their subsribers database to start with, with an infrastructure to manage users' profiles.
Changing the attitude is critical. Companies think they "own" customers. Social Networking participants are not mere potential costumers.
Revenue streams drivers: access, communication, premium features, transactions, contribution to a cause.
The attitude of users on e-shops is the same as in a physical shop: users come in, take a look, look at colors, stuff around, exit, come back in and then buy. Social networks could help break these mental barriers and create a trust relationship. Words of mouth marketing as well.
Social networking can be used to trigger interest in products, for context-based advertisements.
Operators should be involved because they know how to manage identities, transactions.

Questions/Answers

Karl: Do you record any live discussion between people?
A: No. Forbidden by law.
Karl: Social networks do that. There's always a third person in the room. And people aren't aware of it. Not explicit.
Q: Difference between fixed and mobile social networks?
A: Honestly. I see fewer and fewer differences. Everything's going to become mobile too.
Christine: It's not going to fixed. It's all going to mobile. I also heard another question: why do we have fragmented identities? In my view, the mobile community is much more focused.