http://www.semergence.com/2007/06/13/links-for-2007-06-14/

http://www.semergence.com/2007/06/13/a-brief-history-of-consensus-2pc-and-transaction-commit/

http://www.snee.com/bobdc.blog/2007/06/developerworks_article_on_xhtm.html

http://norman.walsh.name/2007/06/13/xprocParameters

http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/2007/06/13/sioc-and-other-rdf-from-apache-forrest-in-google-soc/

http://www.semergence.com/2007/06/12/links-for-2007-06-13/

http://burningbird.net/technology/googles-song-and-dance/

http://clarkparsia.com/weblog/2007/06/12/the-aftermath-of-almost-everything/

http://rdfa.info/2007/06/12/oasis-opendocument-metadata/

http://www.snee.com/bobdc.blog/2007/06/semantic_web_strategies_speake.html

http://burningbird.net/technology/iphone-and-the-semantic-web-iknow/

http://burningbird.net/technology/max-headroom-and-joost/

http://burningbird.net/technology/on-privacy-redux/

http://www.semanticblogging.org/semblog/blog/default/?permalink=D6D0E3701EE05BBB4085CB338D27D354.html

http://ivanherman.wordpress.com/2007/06/11/%e2%80%9cfriendly-talks%e2%80%9d-aka-i-had-some-fun-with-sparql-and-exhibit%e2%80%a6/

http://burningbird.net/technology/hostile-to-privacy/

http://www.snee.com/bobdc.blog/2007/06/more_on_words_mediocre_xml.html

http://clarkparsia.com/weblog/2007/06/08/brief-outage/

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheSeer/~3/123206636/java-semweb-developers-wanted.html

http://clarkparsia.com/weblog/2007/06/07/pellet-15-release-candidate-1/

http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/restful_web_services_the_book

, in which Mark Mc Keown attempts to keep us all in sync with the history of consensus across processes in a distributed system.

Part the sixth, in which we consider options and parameters.

Dealing with command line options and parameters turns out to be trickier than it looks.

Forrest is “a publishing framework that transforms input from various sources into a unified presentation in one or more output formats”… Looking forward to seeing this!

Google to the European Union's privacy concerns with a response that includes a decision to begin to 'anonymize' search results at 18 months. Rather than allay concerns, the company's response only raises more questions.

Let's leave aside, for a moment, . Whatever ends up happening with Google in regards to data storage will probably greatly impact on other companies. Google, in this case, becomes the bellwether when it comes to storing 'incidental data' such as searches, ad clicks, map uses, emails, and so on.

Google's reasoning for storing data, and the fact that it is vague responding to questions about use of cookies, how long personal information is kept once original data is deleted, and whether and how profiling is happening–not to mention what kind of data is stored relating to Reader, Analytics, and so on, don't really address the concerns about privacy.

For instance, Google uses its spell checker as one example of the 'further' research necessary for storing data for such longer periods of time. This makes no sense, though, because if a person uses one spelling at one time, chances are they'll use alternative spellings within a short time afterwards because the original spelling won't return what they need. Do people really do multiple searches using different spellings 18 months apart?

In regards to the efficiency of the search, yes, clicking on the first item would show the search worked. But does a person make a search, keep the results up on their screen for 18 months, and then click through?

I was also surprised that preparations for a DoS (Denial of Service) occurs through search engine results for months before an attack. Leads to another question: does this happen a lot? And what do the search result patterns show? A lot of people looking up "How do I create a Denial of Service Attack" or "DoS for Dummies"? I'm neither a search engine wiz, or a security expert. I guess this is all beyond my abilities and understandings.

In regards to detecting click fraud, again, I would assume something like this would be apparent at some point, and storing information related to such an event makes sense — but what about the world of data completely outside such patterns?

As for having to maintain this data for 18 months because of 'government' regulations: which ones? Google keeps mentioning these, but the ones the company references in Europe have to do ISPs, not search engines. The US laws mentioned in the response are focused on financial transactions, and the data storage needs here have to do with storing data until invoices are paid–exactly how long does it take Google to pay people?

That the Justice Department and others in the US talk about storing data for years is just that: talk. Until and unless laws are enacted, we have to remember that the current Justice Department in this country is still acting under the shotgun reactions of a paranoid idiot who isn't smart enough to be hired to clean Google's floors. Times are changing: we won't always live in this constant state of generated fear.

What was fascinating was Google's claim that it can only support one global privacy standard. Does that mean that if Tuvalu passes a law that search engine companies must retain raw search results and other personal data for two years (or five or ten), Google is then going to use this to establish its privacy requirements for, say, the US, Japan, Europe, and all points from there?

"Well, there we go. It's out of our hands now. Time to build another dam for another data center. Say, the Mississippi looks like it would really drive some turbine–what do you people in Missouri feel about being known as 'Lake Google'?

Search results, cookies, unknown data collection patterns, amount of profiling, types of profiling, persisting data even when accounts are deleted–instead of accusing people of 'wearing tin hats' for asking legitimate questions about data retention, it's time for Google to put away its PR and its team of lawyers and have a honest discussion with the people who helped it become the multi-billion dollar success it is. This is not asking the company to give away corporate secrets and unveil it's deepest, darkest algorithms. This is asking for specifics, when all we have been given in the past is vague generalities. Better yet, this is asking to let us have .

These questions and concerns raised this week are not going away. They are going to persist. Probably about as long as the data Google stores.

Just a quick update post (SPARQL ), (organizing and…everything), and (nothing but hanging out; I did jump, fully clothed, into a pool; I expect photos will show up at some point): Lot’s of good and important stuff happened.

One of the most interesting things at OWLED was that Sandro Hawke annouced that the W3C team has started work on a charter for a potential W3C working group to extend OWL along the lines of OWL 1.1. While this is not a done deal, by any means, it is an important step. Thanks to everyone who helped including all the wonderful moral support we’ve received. There are still devils and details, as always, but I’m very happy with how things are going.

Bruce D’Arcus that the OASIS OpenDocument Metadata Subcommittee works on a in their file format:

Note: For further discussions on this topic see also .

I downloaded Safari, and it works quite nicely on Windows. What an interesting development in the broadest sense of the term.

I also followed , which again is of interest to an Ajax developer. One problem, though: the iphone costs 500.00 for the low end phone, 600.00 for the higher end.

I have a cellphone, I have an iPod. I like new toys as much as the next person, but even if I could afford it, I'd have a hard time shelling out that kind of money for a device which really isn't best of breed for both. Other than the bigger video screen.

It would be appropriate to cover in my next book, though, since its focus is on web graphics. Perhaps I can get O'Reilly to shell out for an iPhone I can 'borrow'.

I wonder, it supports the web, but can it support a semantic web? Will it have a tiny little RDF engine? Can it do OWL? How much knowledge can fit into 3GB and change?

If we can squeeze RDF onto the device in addition to a bitty browser and Ajax, I have dibs on the term .

Kent Newsome recently and doesn't think much of the premise. His story reminded me that I haven't done an update on the service for a time.

The company just issued another beta release of the software, and it is getting very stable, at least on Windows XP SP2. I've been looking for new content through the online channel guide. However, it was only when and its channel and new content feeds was pointed out to me was I able to discover the new Warner Brother's Sci-Fi channel, with two Max Headroom shows, three Time Trax, the Aqua Man pilot, and several shows from the first season of Babylon Five. More new shows are added daily to multiple channels, including several very old and very classic cartoons — featuring Betty Boop and Felix the Cat, as well as classic Looney Tunes.

Upside is that the picture is getting quite good and when I sit in my TV watching chair and send the signal from computer to my LCD TV, I get a really nice picture and little hesitation or breakup for most of the shows. Its a nice alternative if you don't want to pay for cable or satellite, but still want to have access to video content outside of your own movies.

Downside is that more Max Headroom shows are needed. Oh, and Joost is the most uncommunicative company I have ever seen that's dependent on the beta process and word of mouth. Company personnel never participate in the forum, update the company weblog, or respond to bug submissions. Surprising considering the number of RDF community members associated with the application and company. This is probably the shape of things to come: don't expect interaction to be with anyone other than other service users.

I'll have to look for a privacy statement to see if the site stores information about what shows I watch, and whether I'd be embarrassed if my viewing habits became public fodder. However, I'm a weblogger, little embarrasses me.

Again, if you want an invite, drop me a comment with your name and email address (emails are not published).

Matt Cutts of Google to the Privacy International report, citing the privacy lapses of AOL and other companies. I'm not going to address these, particularly since has done this, so well.

Some of Matt's readers assumed PI was motivated by some form of corruption or corporate bias, or that the report was an attempt to garner attention. I doubt the corruption, but it's true that watch dog groups operate almost purely on the attention they can generate about an issue.

Regardless of motivation, none of this discounts what the report says, or how people are reacting to it. That's what should be the focus of our discussion now, and that's what the folks of Google should be paying attention to. I wrote the following in comments at Matt's post:

What's not needed is more PR for Google, or some form of privacy czar. The former will just recommend more paint for the cracked walls; the latter will get caught up in the mechanics of what is Google–which is an organization centering around the push for perfect searches, perfection being determined in a scholarly vacuum.

I've never been particularly concerned about Google releasing data outside of the company, or to the government. Well, at least not the US. It's not in the company's interest, from a corporate stand point, or from the personal views of the workers.

What I've long been concerned about is what Google does with this data internally. You see, I have a difficult time trying to figure out why having IP addresses associated with specific searches is such an important component of the algorithms for these searches. After all, one doesn't need to know the exact IP address to see which items are clicked through to from searches. One assumes that when creating a generalized search, click through rates would be sufficient.

But no, the company specifically stores IP addresses with these searches. I'm not a search engine wiz, but one can assume the company is checking for patterns across a universe of searches. This gives it the ability to take search to the next levels of complexity–and the more information about how individuals approach search as a whole, the better it can fine tune algorithms. In fact, it would be nice if we would search under our names so it wouldn't have to muck around with IP addresses that can change. It will even provide us a history of such searches.

However, attempts along this line have not met with universal acceptance, which must be a source of frustration to the company. Why? Because the company really isn't 'evil', and doesn't have 'evil' intentions with its data. If it did, our lives would be so much simpler.

I assume the company is storing the IP address with the searches in order to generate a more semantically meaningful search result–exploring search as it relates to other searches; to perhaps even have the engine 'learn' from previous search efforts and adjust results accordingly. Not necessarily a bad thing to do, though people behave based on their unique environment, built of life experiences, that tends to blur the ability to derive any universally useful heuristic from captured patterns.

However, add this with the other data that Google can capture–either about a person, specifically, or about a given IP address at a time:

I culled this list from the Google applications I know of, all reflecting the type of data that Google can, and most likely is, collecting about us. That's a lot of data. Why is it collecting such? For better searches? Not likely. In order to personalize the web? There could be something to this, and this is one area where our interpretations of Google's activities can differ, widely, between us.

Many people seem to feel 'flattered' or even grateful when software remembers about us. I'm not sure why–perhaps it has something to do with feeling alienated from this large world, or from those around us. Perhaps we're just lazy and anything that promises us simpler access to data is viewed as 'good'.

Google also projects this warm feeling of intimacy by the simplicity of the company's interfaces to many of the tools. They are not especially polished or sophisticated. They strike one as being efficient, simple, clean, and straight forward. There's never even a hint, at any time that Google is a multi-billion dollar corporation that's becoming one of the most major influences in both our culture and our lives. A company whose shareholders recently voted to continue doing business with China rather than take a stand against that country's repressive policies.

Yet Google gave us satellite views in our maps, and tools and toys we can use as much as we want without once charging us a penny. It gave us Developer Days, and GWT, and Maps; supports open source, and hires some of our favorite people. It is a teddy bear. A really big, really smart teddy bear.

Looking beyond the fur, though, we have to remember that Google is a company that can be both ruthless, and single minded in its determination of the course its charted for itself. For all that we may like those members of Google who we know–through weblogs, conferences, or other associations–they are only part of a much bigger whole. Their individual beliefs and personal morals can only influence the company as much as that inner, powerful sanctum that is the heart of Google allows. And the inner heart of Google is one based on a corporate belief in the ultimate righteousness of its algorithms. A belief that over time, as these algorithms are allowed to increase in sophistication, they will filter out bias, bigotry, and ignorance. The company believes passionately in its research–so much so that it can't even comprehend why we're so worried about privacy. What was it ? .