Privacy and Personal Data - Ooops, Did You Not Want Us To Publicly Publish That?

A continuation of another important thread - keeping private information private!

TechCrunch reports today that Twitter users may be interested to find some of their private messages shared publicly. Oops. The user statement at the beginning of the post says it all - if I can't trust an application provider to keep my data private, then why should I use them?

Even with "free" applications, there are certain expectations that users have. Once burned significantly, it's hard to win someone's trust back.

Surprisingly, the "lost tapes" scandals of the summer had little impact on governments and businesses to blame. Both consumers and businesses will, as expected, probably do a little cost-benefit on these issues, just like a manufacturer with defective product.

But it does seem logical that, with more internet apps used for more sensitive data by more people (increased volume), and with the abysmal integration across apps/lack of user control over their own data, this problem will show up again.

Perhaps with more dire consequences than someone deleting their Twitter account.