“Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner has strong opinions about privacy and data collection, and his experience makes that particularly interesting. Born in Reykjavik, Iceland, Jon is the co-founder and CEO of Massachusetts-based Vivaldi Technologies, and before that co-founder and CEO of Opera Software.
As Jeremy Cowan writes, some of what he tells VanillaPlus here may have occurred to you too, but I for one had never voiced it so eloquently. Many of us have been reluctant occasionally to give away our personal data when accessing an online service, and we may have felt there should be an option — but there wasn’t.
Jon von Tetzchner: I just think that things have gone too far, with regards to the collection of data, and I think that things need to be changed. We’ve been told that we have to accept that information is being collected on us, and that’s part of accessing the internet. But it wasn’t done until recently, not to this level.
I think people have just caved in and said, “Okay, this is the price we pay,” but it doesn’t have to be. The damage from the collection is too much, so we need to stop it.
VanillaPlus: Yes. Why do you think people accepted it?
JvT: I think in a way, they’re just being told that they have to, and there’s no-one really speaking up about it, to say that, “You shouldn’t be collecting this information.” I think for a while there, people were just accepting it because they thought there was a correlation between privacy and security. That you had to give up privacy for security reasons, and that’s not really the case. If anything, you can argue the opposite.
VanillaPlus: Are you ploughing a lonely furrow here? Or are other people already saying the same sort of thing, and getting traction?
JvT: I think I’m early, but I think there are others that are sharing my opinions. When I talk about these things, everyone seems to agree completely. A lot of people have been saying that they didn’t really think you could say, “Okay, we can’t do this.” Or, they didn’t think that there have existed laws that prevent these kinds of things from happening.
I don’t know about you, but I have a company; I’m used to having some user data, and you just don’t share it with anyone else. That’s a violation of law, at least in Norway and Iceland, and the like.
So, the concept of this total collection, like we are seeing now, it just doesn’t make any sense. Then, when you combine that with the targeting opportunities, which are being provided, which you can say, “It’s great for small companies, to be able to reach a bigger audience.” But it’s also putting up a lot of unhealthy ways of advertising.” …
Read the full interview here.
