At Social Graph Foo, privacy was the proverbial elephant in the room. Its presence is widely acknowledged, and the OAuth and OpenID teams are trying to make people aware of the problems that arise when people aren't allowed to manage their personal data effectively. The problem takes many shapes, but here's the scariest: During Brad Fitzpatrick's talk Saturday morning, he mentioned that he had set up a "secret" alternate web presence; but he listed his Gmail address in his profile, and people fairly quickly traced the new presence back to him. In side conversations, other attendees reported making similar mistakes: creating private sites for family photos that quickly leaked to the rest of the world, and soon. But don't chalk it up to a simple mistake. This is complex stuff. If someone as Net-savvy as Fitzpatrick could make that mistake, what chance does my grandfather have?
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