Good Q&A in Politico on (the lack) of online privacy.  I agree that 'Digital privacy does not really exist' though I also believe there's a better chance for it online then there is in person. Back in 1998 David Brin's The Transparent Society foresaw the erosion of privacy partly due to low cost surveillance - what we now call IoT. With camera and microphones everywhere - including the phones in our pockets - it's difficult to escape our every action being recorded.

Listening to the Cause last night, the last line from St. Stephen (written by Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia) struck me: "What would be your answer to the Answer Man?"  Though I've heard this line sung so many times before, this time my brain mapped it differently than I have before, with Google (plus all other hunter/gatherers of personal information - I'm looking at you, Facebook and Amazon) playing the part of the Answer Man.

Google is announcing Friend Connect tonight, a service advertised to "help website owners grow traffic by enabling any site on the web to easily provide social features for its visitors." Friend Connect employs OpenID and OAuth which is a good start, but how it puts them together is lacking vision and, disturbingly, may raise significant privacy concerns.

Day one at the Internet Identity Workshop, or IIW2007, began with Eugene Kim - Chairman-elect of Identity Commons ("2.0", now with rounded corners), asking those attending their first IIW to stand up - over two-thirds of the 150 or so people in the room stood up. This is a great trend - the word is getting out!

Many of us celebrated when it was announced that AOL has embraced OpenID. Does that bring us any closer to the goal of secure, privacy protected user-centric digital identity that empowers users, leveling the playing field between them and service providers to the great benefit of both? (OK, that's my goal, but maybe some of you may share it.) I say: no.