What are the risks of centralizing information?
Peter Thiel
President, Clarium Capital Management; Co-Founder, PayPal
Although people's lives become more transparent, there is more transparency into the government or into other institutions as well.
Filed under:
The Internet
Posted at:
10:15 AM on December 18, 2007
Question: What are the risks of centralizing information?
Peter Thiel: Well you have Google. You have Facebook, which has a directory of all . . . all . . . all different people. There are all sorts of variations of these information technology companies with large databases basically where they have data on all sorts of . . . all sort of stuff about people; what they’ve done and so on down the line. I think . . . I think there is obviously a lot of danger about that. I guess two thoughts. On the current trajectory, the central . . . decentralization still has been outweighing the centralizing aspect. So if you take Google as one instance, it has . . . By enabling people to get access to information, it has created far more transparency. You know there was an issue in the 2004 presidential race where there was . . . The Dan Rather memo was . . . technologies like Google enabled that to sort of get exposed far more quickly than it otherwise would have. And so . . . so it’s probably had the effect of weakening some of these centralized, big media companies and creating a far more transparent world. So transparency can cut both ways. On the one hand it makes things more transparent into people’s lives. But maybe the transparency also goes the other way, and you have more transparency into the government or into other institutions. And that sort of is the positive spin on this . . . on this increased transparency. It can actually lead to more accountability rather than . . . rather than lust. Now my other . . . My other thought is that to the extent you do have this, I think one of the other trends that we are seeing that, you know, is definitely more disconcerting, but may not be unambiguously catastrophic is we are headed towards a world with far less privacy; and where the notions of privacy are going to change . . . are going to change quite a bit; where there simply will be far more information about you in the public domain. And it seems to me that from a policy perspective, the correct approach should not be a sort of ________ type of approach which I think is championed by people like the ACLU and organizations like that where the way we deal with this is we just smash the computers, and break the databases, and turn everything off; but rather that we have to have a society that somehow becomes more tolerant. And that’s my . . . what I hope would be . . . even if there’s less privacy, there will be more tolerance and it will sort of . . . It will sort of even out. The fear is, of course, that we will have maybe even less privacy, and maybe even less tolerance. Because you know people will just use all sorts of details they find out about other people in all sorts of very distorted and bad ways. But I think . . . I think that certainly is one of the ways in which it’s . . . it’s been playing out so far.
Recorded on: 09/05/2007
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Peter Thiel
President, Clarium Capital Management; Co-Founder, PayPal
Peter Thiel is an American entrepreneur, hedge fund manager and venture capitalist. He is Clarium’s President and the Chairman of the firm’s investment committee, which oversees the firm’s research, investment, and trading strategies. Before starting Clarium, Peter served as Chairman and CEO of PayPal, an Internet company he co-founded in December 1998 and was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in October 2002.
Read more about Peter Thiel »
Yes, centralizing info is a good thing when it comes to real, useful, knowledge. If someone wishes to know how to use a computer program that previously required a manual or class, now instructions can be found online, for example.
As to personal privacy, I guess that is up to the individual how much of their own info gets online in a public domain. I've googled plenty of old friends before and found zip.
So, if you want to remain anonymous, keep your personal photos and address info off the my space & facebook sites. Personal dating sites are treasure troves of spammable info for companies who want to get lists of people to target advertising to, not to mention worse, identity theft.
From a business and accounting standpoint, private and secure databases are a must. Even then, the old ways still apply. Two sets of "books" are just as easy in the information age to hide assetts and ill gotten income as in the 1950's. Crime will always find a way around coming clean to the IRS and the Government. For that matter, Government itself claims National Security issues to keep their dealings and dis-honest
tactics private and forever hidden from the Press and those who would stop them. Current
Government, anyway.
So, in closing, info for public consumption
is always going to be rather harmless to Big Money and Big Government. Private individuals should guard their own secrets by keeping sensitive info to themselves.
But education and knowledge for self betterment should be free to all. Free is a dirty word in Capitalism, but everyone should be able to get a high school level understanding of any subject by a click of a mouse. Hopefully, much more advanced learning will someday be freely available.
Proving you know what you claim- that is what degrees are for and why they are very expensive, at least in America.
Smaller government will help with more checks & balances, but that process of change is agonizingly slow. Revolutions usually happen due to lack of change for the better in the eyes of the masses, who will have to rest control back from the few. Current affairs will force a shift change, soon, but that's what happens when one part of any government has too much unrestricted power. The status quo , the haves vs. the have nots. The downtrodden vastly outnumber the rich & powerful. Miraculous that the masses haven't organized a revolution before now. I personally do not advocate violence, but their are plenty who would, to settle their various scores.
But back to the topic, transparency? Honest companies who play by the rules will be transparent. Dis-honest organizations will only "appear" transparent, to keep their secrets. Why would that ever change, really?
Any topic can have political overtones, can it not?????