Was interested to see a piece on Romenesco in which a correspondent slated a Wall Street Journal reporter for quoting a Friendster profile. Friendster, for the uninitiated, is one of a swathe of personal networking sites on which you post your details and then link together with online chums to create a community of friends, and friends of friends. Of the WSJ report that used the Friendster profile, Jonathan Katz writes: "I guess there are more stupid, less ethical ways to report, but I can't think of any... The information is basically private."
Well, I can think of more than a few examples of stupid, unethical reporting that, it seems, might shock Katz. But his point about the information being "basically private" is less naive. Those wanting a good examination of the issue should read Danny O'Brien's essay on the issue of public, private and secret registers, and the dangers of the net getting rid of the private register in favour of only public and secret. Is this another example of a situation where, to paraphrase Carly Fiorina's memorable description of music pirates, technology is developing faster than our ethics?
