Google announced this week that Google Wallet is now available for Sprint.
Totally convenient, and just a bit nerve-wracking for me, as I don’t like the “single point of failure” aspect. This does make your phone an even more integral part of your identity – now it’s not only your contacts, your photos, your social media, and your e-mail, but also your bank and credit cards.
There’s a reason Google is all about true names:
Who are our customers? Our customers are over one million advertisers, from small businesses targeting local customers to many of the world’s largest global enterprises, who use Google AdWords to reach millions of users around the world.
ThomasMonopoly writes an excellent summary at FSM.
IT World argues in support of sites working to ensure that all online identities are true identities.
Excerpt:
So despite the hamfisted way Google has been handling the issue of real names on Google+, you have to at least give them props for realizing that securing members’ identities is key to keeping its network free from scammers. That’s something eBay, Craigslist, and MySpace (among others) realized too late.
Facebook blocked a Chrome extension today that let you export all your data (including contact info about your FB friends) to your computer.
I’m sure this has NOTHING to do with the many beta users of Google + utilizing this extension in the last few days.
NOTHING.
It does raise a question: To whom does your identity information belong? To you? What about to friends with whom you’ve shared it via Facebook or another tool? To the tool you used?
This is the same model that has made me crazy for years, whenever Equifax or a similar credit agency charged me for access to my information.
It’s possible that we should split data from information: I own my data (my gender, name, age, address) and can share it with my friends or businesses or the government and they can do whatever they want with it (Friend A can tell his Friend Q my birthdate). When they turn it into information (“we’ve analyzed your gender, age, residency, and search terms, and think you’ll like these ads”), then that info is theirs and I’d have to pay to get it or to keep them from using it or selling it.
Druid's Glass 