Let’s keep on learning about privacity, because recently there was an important news related to where the data is stored: Europe says is not valud to transfer personal data to USA servers. (the news is in spanish)
, and here you have the resolution.
If you use #BigData, your data should be distributed
The issue is serious, because when I wrote about #MapReduce to use #BigData, one of the features is distributed data, in order to work in paralell. Of course, big companies like Facebook, Google or Amazon have their data distributed within their datacenters around the world, and this way, the information of a european citizen doesn’t need to be stored exclusively in european servers (the same for american citizen and american servers, and so on!).
This undefinition is used by these global companies for not having to give an account of where their data is stored (bye bye privacy!!), and therefore, when governments make requirements about data, the answer is that data are not stored on servers in that country and even … they do not know exactly where they are stored.
Are data generated by me mine?
I know it sounds wierd but it is possible that data generated by me can not be of my posesion. Imagine that, for a moment, Facebook decide to shut down their servers, where is my data? It sounds wierd that this happend at Facebook, but … can it happend in smaller companies? As an example, Endomondo is a app for runners and bikers where your runs data is stored. Until a time ago, it was very complicated to export your own data. Are data so important?
Although you are a small fish in the ocean of Internet, your data interest
The answer is: YES. Knowing you user better allow companies to offer exactly what they want or what they need, and the only way of knowing it is by analizing data. A few years ago it seems science fiction, but today all this is real (business)!
Have you ever think about how is it possible that a company doesn’t allow you to export the data generated by their users? Yes, it can occu, although it is not a common practice. In my opinion, that kind of behaviour semms strange. In the case of Endomongo, I am writing a post to show you how to export all your data.
Accepting the terms of service
Certainly I don’t know any user that have read from the begining until the end the text of service conditions, and later you can suffer them, becuase maybe your data is never delete …. instead, it is not displayed to you (they remain hidden). One thing is that you do not see, and others, why are not being eliminated. A clear example of this is WhatsApp (for those who do not know, Facebook is behind it).
Maybe a quick clic on the terms of service canconditions can be taken into account when users fail to comply terms of service. So, if you are a WhatsApp (a famous message app where I already wrote about how to decrypt the database) user and they detect that you are not following the instructions, they can shut down the service with no explanataions (here are the consecuences). So, a quick read (or not read terms of service) has consequences!!
Normally, enefits of a service are bigger than reading the terms of service, and you are not in a mood of having a reading of 15 minutos of burocracy. Now, you’re warned!
Internet does NOT forget
Most of the Internet users are not concious that Internet does NOT forget. Every thing stored in one server is almost automatically replicated in hundred (maybe thousands) of servers, and you cann’t destroy it at all. There is always a “cache” that has it stored!
As a compilation, you should take into account that everything that happend on Internet last forever and it’s very difficult to modify it!
So, be careful while navigating on Internet, do it with common sense and,Así que, sed respetuosos, navegar con sentido común, y sobre todo, no subas ni escribas nada que no quieres que se quede para siempre!
Have a nice day!