Privacy Betrayed as Twitter Sells Archive

I’m still at RSA, and busy so this will be quick. This story cropped up on my news feed this morning: “Privacy betrayed: Twitter sells multi-billion tweet archive”. Some quick thoughts:

• What a hyperbolic headline! When does selling an archive of public information constitute a betrayal of privacy? This doesn’t put Twitter in a great light but, as far as I can tell from the very thin information in the article, they aren’t selling private data. Nor do I believe their terms of use say they won’t do this type of transaction.
• They actually quoted The Daily Mail as a source? The “news source” with the current headline “A Royal girls’ day out for Duchess Kate, the Queen and Camilla…” What a joke.

I’ll be interested to see if this story gets picked up elsewhere and spun-up until it ends up on CNN as some large scandalous injustice. Who knows, maybe if it does become a big story it will help the public realize that if they say something publicly on the Internet everyone will have access to it.

/rant

On a positive note, I’m getting a fantastic vibe at RSA and meeting some great people. I’ll try to wrap it all up in a post this weekend.