Google, Yahoo get even more socialized
January 16, 2009 (VentureBeat)
More and more entities are developing and/or becoming more involved in social networks. These networks are becoming more intertwined with our daily lives and our personal information. For example, there are rumors that MySpace is developing its own webmail service and both Google and Yahoo have pushed new additions to their social networks or social network-like services.
With Google, it's now possible to add contact info to Google Profiles, and then allow your contacts or contact groups to see that information in your profile. CNET's Stephen Shankland notes that this contact info could help Google figure out who are the closer connections in your "social graph".
Yahoo Mail already allows you to use social connections to prioritize certain emails, as part of its broader effort to turn Yahoo into a social network. Moreover, Yahoo’s Open Social initiative now allows you to share your activity on other sites (such as reviews on Yelp or messages on
Twitter) with your social network in Yahoo.
With all of these new initiatives, plus all that Facebook already offers, one’s personal information can be easily spread across the internet… for both beneficial and malicious purposes. The question that continues to be raised is: How do you maintain accuracy and control your privacy? How can you be sure that your data is secure and only accessible by those of your choosing?
YOUnite's patented technology offers a unique solution to the questions of accuracy and privacy on one’s personal information through the notion of "distributed sharing of personal identity attributes". By applying YOUnite's patented technology to social networks, for example, the user would be able to maintain complete control of who has access to their information on an individual basis as well as deciding what pieces of their information can be assessable to which individuals. YOUnite’s patented technology allows for complete granularity in data access and ensures that the data is accurate across all devices or systems that are given access to it.
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