myware

="myware"=

toc "Myware" is a software developed by Seth Goldstein; an entrepreneur who started up Root Markets; a software that aspires to create a financial market for consumer data. This software allows you to have complete control over who gets to see your online information such as what websites you've been on and your different online behaviours, procedures, and habits. This product deals with surviellance and counter-surveillance in such a way that you, yourself, act as your own self surveyor. "Myware", coined by Goldstein, is derived from the term spyware.

Goldstein sees "myware" as a way for people to deal with information overload by measuring how they spend their time online. Goldstein outlines that when companies like Google, [|Yahoo!], and [|Microsoft] collect information about you by using passwords and requiring private informaiton, you are laying down the groundwork for them to track your behaviour throughout the vast space of the web using your online identity. Surveillance and privacy is an incredibly important issue in the information age.



"All those streams of online data are what make me //me,"// said Goldstein

The company is in its early developmental stages of testing. The service is called [|Root Vaults], an information bank that stores every website you visit, graphs of which ones you visit the most, how many hours you spend on each website and online per day, and also the topics of the different sites you visit (such as business, media, travel, news, adult etc.) Goldstein says that the first steps to deal with information overload is by measuring it.

Four Principles
Any company that uses this information must agree to four principles:

1. The data is property of the user 2. It can be moved from one ervice or device to another at will 3. It can be exchanged for something of value 4. The user has toe right to know who is using it and how.

For more information, visit their website at [|www.root.net] // //

Links
[|Roots Market] [|myware] Surveillance Spyware

Reference
// Schonfeld, Erick (January 19, 2006). Spy on yourself Online [online]. Cable News Network LP, LLLP. Available from: http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/19/technology/futureboy/index.htm [accessed 18 February, 2006.]

Roots Markets (2005). Root [online]. New York:NY. Available from: http://www.root.net [accessed 24 February 2006].

Images provided by: http://www.root.net //