The Social Web’s Evolving Social Contract

When tech companies handed their keys to their creditors at the end of the boom in 2000, some left behind heaps of customer records in filing cabinets and on harddrives . The accountants turned out the lights. The keepers of those files, network and account managers, had long been fired. That data went to the dumpsters or was scavenged by furniture trolls.

Fast forward to the current recession. Sure companies will go bankrupt. Some may be equally negligent guarding your personal information, but more likely your credit card number, address, and content will be hoovered-up by some larger acquiring company. The content created at Pownce is now Six Apart’s responsibility. The info at Napster is being sucked into the databases of Best Buy — yes the Napster! Elsewhere, Google Notebooks are going dark.

The powerless, to compensate for their condition, often feel the need to strike out. That is not what this is. It’s not alarmist. It’s not a call for an internet user’s bill-of-rights. It is just an observation that on the second go-around with web-company closures, the implied social contract that exists in cities — where it is OK to have cars drive by you at highspeed and have you not fear for your life — is now in effect with data and personal information on the net.