Privacy, publicness, and the web: A manifesto

The internet is the greatest agent of change since at least Gutenberg. Its leaders, Google and Facebook, are transforming business, society, our relationships, and even our worldview in so many ways. They\´re also transforming our notions of privacy and publicness. Will this new world be a better one? Facebook and Google-and I-believe a public society is a better society. "On balance, making the world more open is good", Facebook\´s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, told me. "Our mission is to make the world more open and connected." And Google\´s is to organize the world\´s public knowledge. Many benefits accrue to a public society. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, has been calling for opening up as much data as possible- save for that which jeopardizes privacy- to move the Web to its next phase. Because when data are layered upon data and connections are made, value can grow dramatically.