Category: Tools

Giving Customers Scale

Customers need scale. Scale is leverage. A way to get lift. Big business gets scale by aggregating resources, production methods, delivery services — and, especially, customers: you, me and billions of others without whom business would not exist. Big business is heavy by nature. That’s why we use mass as an adjective for much of what big…
Privacy is an Inside Job

Start here: clothing and shelter are privacy technologies. We use them to create secluded spaces for ourselves. Spaces we control. Our ancestors have been wearing clothing for at least 170,000 years and building shelters for at least half a million years. So we’ve had some time to work out what privacy means. Yes, it differs among cultures and settings,…
Terms: What are They and Why Should You Care?

Terms are choices you make to ask that your data and activities be treated a certain way. Customer Commons is developing terms with Kantara and the Consent and Information Sharing Working Group so that we have a standardized set of terms, which can commonly be used through browsers, apps and other forms. It is our…
New Rules for Privacy Regulations

The Wall Street Journal has an informative conversation with Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation. What underlies a change toward new models are two points: the servers holding vast user databases are increasingly (and very cheaply) breached, and the value of the information in those databases is being transferred to something…
Volvo’s In-Car Delivery Service

In Volvo launches in-car package delivery service in Gothenburg, Volvo’s new service “lets you have your Christmas shopping delivered directly to your car.” Intriguing idea that saves on parking hassles like those people who are waiting/idling around the favored spots. With just days to go before Black Friday and Cyber Monday – the busiest online…
Customer Commons and User Submitted Terms

Above is a strawman proposal for icons for user-submitted terms that I’ve been presenting in talks and in prototypes for creating privacy-protecting technology for individuals. I’ve been sharing this with people for the last couple of years to increasing recognition that we need a simple way to assert our terms. I made it up to demonstrate…
Data Privacy Legal Hack-A-thon

Customer Commons is supporting, and board member, Mary Hodder, is hosting the Bay Area event. Additionally, there are NYC and London locations. Please join us if you are interested: This is an unprecedented year documenting our loss of Privacy. Never before have we needed to stand up and team up to do something about it.…
Omie Update (version 0.2)

We’re overdue an update on the Omie Project…., so here goes. To re-cap: We at Customer Commons believe there is room/ need for a device that sits firmly on the side of the individual when it comes to their role as a customer or potential customer. That can and will mean many things and iterations…
Surf safely with Web Pal

It’s time to draw the line on surveillance. Today nearly every commercial website infects our browsers with tracking files that report our activities back to parties we may not know or trust. So we’re providing a way to draw that line: Web Pal — a browser extension that blocks tracking and advertising*, eliminating the browser…
For personal data, use value beats sale value

There’s an argument that goes like this: Companies are making money with personal data, and They are getting this data for free. Therefore, People should be able to make money with that data too. This is not helpful framing, if we want to get full value out of our personal data. Or even to understand…