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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 345
EAN: 9780300144222
ISBN: 0300144229
Label: Yale University Press
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: October 28, 2008
Publisher: Yale University Press
Studio: Yale University Press
Features:- ISBN13: 9780300144222
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there’s a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A permanent chronicle of our private lives—often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally false—will follow us wherever we go, accessible to friends, strangers, dates, employers, neighbors, relatives, and anyone else who cares to look. This engrossing book, brimming with amazing examples of gossip, slander, and rumor on the Internet, explores the profound implications of the online collision between free speech and privacy.
Daniel Solove, an authority on information privacy law, offers a fascinating account of how the Internet is transforming gossip, the way we shame others, and our ability to protect our own reputations. Focusing on blogs, Internet communities, cybermobs, and other current trends, he shows that, ironically, the unconstrained flow of information on the Internet may impede opportunities for self-development and freedom. Long-standing notions of privacy need review, the author contends: unless we establish a balance between privacy and free speech, we may discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Nutshell review - Not a bad book but the core message, the essence, of this book could have been written in 10% of the pages. The rest is filled with stories and examples and anecdotes of how information about people or organizations, both true and false, can come back to haunt. Stories of how people lost their jobs, or closet skeletons exposed, reputations lost (or made) as information, now stored electronically, finds a permanent home somewhere on the internet and is always just a Google away, always waiting to be found by someone who chooses to look.
Besides containing lots of page-filler stories and examples it also mentions everyone. In the span of just 5 or 6 pages, for example, the author makes mention of 20 other professors, authors, researchers, philosophers, legal experts, etc, etc. Is this an attempt to create as many searchable linkages between this work and the work of all those others? At times it is a non-stop referencing of 3rd party work and authors. It contains all the current must-mentions du-jour like Stanley Milgram, Malcolm Gladwell, Barabasi, et al, all with their own books out in recent times.
The book is average but does give a broad overview of the problems faced with false or incorrect information, problems with the exposure of private and sensitive information, and the problems with the permanent storage of information on the internet. A fast book to read and lots can be skimmed to get to the important points. Decent notes and bibliography for further investigation.
Rating: -
I've become a huge advocate of the role that "social media" can play in creating participatory environments within communities and local governments, however I've rarely taken a step back to look at the privacy implications of the rapidly emerging "Gov 2.0". Technology advocates (such as myself) tend to push a system where people dump their ideas, feelings, and misgivings about their communities into an online environment, but is there ever a moment where we stop and think about how we might be asking people to incrementally give up their privacy? Each piece of information, each opinion, each comment allows potential onlookers to gain more insight into our private lives. In The Future of Reputation author Daniel Solove takes a broad look at privacy on the internet and the consequences of what can happen when information intended toward one audience ends up in the wrong hands. (more after the jump)
The internet takes more information than we could ever hope to process and dumps it at our feet. In the midst of this information rich society, it seems that there are a greater number of people that consider their own knowledge on a subject to have reached a level suitable to critique the opinions of others. In fact with many Web 2.0 technologies, the open dissection and criticism of ideas is not only possible but in many ways highly encouraged. We freely post comments on blogs, we share information on Twitter with our own insightful twist, we quip about articles sarcastically on Facebook, and in so many other ways we no longer allow a fear of our own lack of knowledge to hold back our opinion. Solove explores the ways in which these information exchanges, criticisms, and comments function and how they diverge from our methods of communicating outside the internet.
The Future of Reputation dives into the many psychologies present on the internet and how they can allow us more freedom to express ourselves while at the same time creating a stronger responsibility to protect the reputations, agency, and autonomies of our fellow humans. Perhaps the most striking example that Solove presents of our new found responsibilities is the YouTube video of the "Star Wars Kid". Many of us passed the video along to friends and enjoyed a good laugh at his expense without ever pausing to think about the psychological impact wrought on the Star Wars Kid by being mocked by millions of people via the internet. Solove guides the reader through a variety of other internet related mishaps and illuminates the darkside of the internet's wide open frontier.
It forced me to examine the ways in which we are asking people to expose themselves and the lack of protections that we have in place for the reputations of those who want to be outspoken in our community. What are the repercussions for those individuals that we ask to make their opinions known about a particular topic? Is there anyway to protect them from any acts of retribution carried out by an employer that might not agree? Are there any true guarantees to privacy in our electronic era where all of our demographic information (and perhaps much more revealing personal information) is only a click away? While the law is still fuzzy with regards to privacy via the interent, Solove lays out the ethical and moral imperatives of how we communicate. The book examines what information we are publicizing about ourselves and shows how it could be used against us. Most importantly, Solove makes the reader stop and consider their own actions from the perspective of the people they are talking about.
Rating: -
The Future of Reputation is thoughtful and thankfully devoid of the "get off my yard" ranting that many books on the "future" of the internet fall into. For anyone that has read (and hated) The Culture of the Amateur, you're safe.
Solove discusses privacy and rumor from a legal standpoint rather than as a culture critic. It gives the reader a rational, objective discussion of the consequences of a fast paced, post first, edit later media landscape when sources are considered bonuses rather than requirements. All of which Solve analyzes with plenty of evidence, caselaw and anecdotes.
Perhaps that's why its so surprising that this book misses both the landmark internet lawsuits involving Tucker Max, who was sued for writing graphically online about a sexual encounter with Miss Vermont and for harassing a rich heir to a farming fortune through an internet messageboard. Both cases fall right into the wheelhouse of the book but are not mentioned even though their precedence was critical. (The ACLU filed an amicus brief in one.
In 2009, this book is two years old, a bit dated and missing some crucial material but is otherwise an interesting read.
Rating: -
This book addresses an incredibly important topic - and is well written to boot. The danger of reputations ruined by carelessness, or by deliberate ill will, should be understood. In fact, this book should be mandatory for human resources personnel and any search committee that uses the Internet to check on a potential employee.
Hopefully Solove will follow up soon with another book. Sites such as Topix, provide a frightening forum for people who are less than ethical. Although Topix provides an alternative format for news, there is no oversight for accuracy or even truth. If Orson Welles had had access to the Internet, perhaps we would all have learned a valuable lesson about questioning and independent thinking. Since Welles is no longer with us, at least we have Daniel Solove to encourage us to question timely issues.
Rating:  -
Solove's book doesn't provide answers, rather it provides situations that help you ask the right questions.
As an extra bonus it is extremely well written and an enjoyable read.
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