I do have a problem: I like profiling and my privacy! Can they exists simultaneously?
I’m really into all the web2.0-profiling stuff: flickr, delicious, youtube, lastfm, plazes, twitter, myspace, facebook, blogs… It’s amazing how easily you can publish and share your stuff. Collect your friends, discuss, meet new people, get feedback and new inspirations. Do you remember the good old days where self-hacked-static-html-websites was so only way to get online? What a mess – for god’s sake – they’re finally gone!
But every coin has two sides. As it is so down-to-earth to use people tend to share everything – without knowing what they are doing. Internet is a big, everlasting archive: once your data is in, it’ll get never out – and google & co. get it all. As of this, foreign people may have access to your data, which was only meant for your friends or personal storage. Years later, you data can be found – even it’s already deleted on your page – google cache and archive.org do thier best! Who no-techie-users knows about that? I myself must confess, I don’t know what personal data of mine is already out there, it’s so hard to keep track.
As my tool whoami displays, its technical quite simple to aggregate your data, create relations, new coherences. Suddenly your are transparent for everyone!
So, what is a good solution to strike a balance between sharing data and still having privacy? Is it just using those websites with brain & care? Do we need more technical support, do we need more educational advertising?
(for those who read this article in ten years later: sorry I was young and need that money 
Some days ago I was stopped by the police because I had no lights on my bike (evil me!). They looked at my passport to state that I’m living just two corners away. Typical statement to build up some pressure and btw: what is the relation of that fact to a bike without lights? It didn’t scare me a damn because I’m becoming used to the fact that people may know where I live simply by surfing the net.
It’s paradox and I can’t explain it yet, but it seems that a wide spread of data can increase privacy in decreasing the potential of blackmailing.
Another thought I already discussed with a friend studying law: all those traces we leave, they never can serve as an evidence, if need be as a clue or an indication. They might be brought together and in that way increase probability. A fact that can inflict a whole lot of anger, sure. Astonishing that it doesn’t work the other way round: you may never use let’s say your plazes-account to prove an alibi.
So be aware of the greyscales