This event will bring together representatives from industry, government, and academia to explore themes in online reputation, community-mediated information production, and their implications for democracy and innovation. The symposium is made possible by the generous support of the Microsoft Corporation.

A distinguished group of experts will map out the terrain of reputation economies in four panels: (1) Making Your Name Online; (2) Privacy and Reputation Protection; (3) Reputation and Information Quality; and (4) Ownership of Cyber-Reputation. See below for more detail on each panel; a current list of confirmed speakers is available at the conference website.

Online registration is available now at: https://wems.worldtek.com/RepEcon. There is a $95 registration fee, which includes lunch. Yale students and faculty and embers of the press may attend for free.

Panel I: Making Your Name Online

Moderator: Jack Balkin
Panelists: Michel Bauwens , Rishab A. Ghosh, Hassan Masum, Beth Noveck

This panel will discuss the shifts in the reputation economy that we are witnessing, largely the transition from accreditation to participatory, community-based modes of reputation management. Some of the questions the panel will address include:

• What are the new norms for cyber-reputation?
• How do these depart from offline models?
• How can reputation in one online system be transported to another?
• How do SNS and reputation connect?
• How do you bootstrap and cash out?

Panel II: Privacy and Reputational Protection

Moderator: Michael Zimmer
Panelists: Alessandro Acquisti , Danielle Citron, William McGeveran , Dan Solove , Jonathan Zittrain

Cyber-reputation management is based on transactions in information that is often sensitive and is always contextual. This brings up many questions about the need to protect one’s privacy and reputation within and outside this system. Some of the questions the panel will address:

• How is participation in cyber-reputation systems related to defamation and free speech?
• What happens when cyber-reputation spills over into offline activities and relationships like the political process, job applications, or school admissions?
• What happens when your second life meets your first?
• Requiring divulgence of real name or other personal data. Is opting out possible?

Panel III: Reputational Quality and Information Quality

Moderator: Laura Forlano
Panelists: Urs Gasser, Ashish Goel, Auren Hofman, Darko Kirovski , Mari Kuraishi

Evidently, unlike traditional reputation mechanisms that relied on small group acquaintances and formal accreditation mechanisms, the cyber-reputation economy is heavily mediated by technology. This raises the risk of breaking the delicate checks and balances that are necessary for the system to ensure quality of both the informational outcomes and the participants’ reputation. This panel will try to highlight the connections between the way the new systems are built, and the outcome they produce. Some of the questions the panel will address:

• How can we assure quality in online reputation economies?
• What is the connections between the system design and the quality information?
• How good are the alternative accreditation mechanisms and how easy are they to hijack?
• How can employment discrimination law adapt to the realities of online reputation?

Panel IV: Ownership of Cyber-Reputation

Moderator: Eddan Katz
Panelists: John Clippinger , Eric Goldman, Bob Sutor, Mozelle Thompson , Rebecca Tushnet

The data and information that are collected in online reputation systems are both valuable and powerful. The ability to control this information, store it, process it, access it, and transport it are crucial to the maintenance of the reputation economy. This panel will address the important set of questions that concern the ownership of this information. Some questions the panel will address:

• Who owns one’s online reputation? Who owns the metadata?
• How portable is online reputation? Should it be transportable from one system to another?
• How is reputation connected to the interoperability question? Should we have international standards governing reputation?

The next generation of intelligent and interactive web services (“Web 2.0”) will require more, not fewer, verifiable identity credentials, and much greater mutual trust to succeed.

Identity systems that are consistent with the Privacy-Embedded Laws of Identity will help consumers verify the identity of legitimate organizations before they decide to continue with an online transaction.

These Privacy-Embedded Laws offer individuals:

• easier and more direct user control over their personal information when online;
• enhanced user ability to minimize the amount of identifying data revealed online;
• enhanced user ability to minimize the linkage between different identities and actions;
• enhanced user ability to detect fraudulent messages and websites, thereby minimizing the incidence of phishing and pharming.

Corresponding Privacy-Embedded Principles

Take, for example, Law #1, Personal Control and Consent, which emphasizes that individuals should be in full local control of their own identity information, and exercise informed consent over how their identity information is collected and used by others. One privacy benefit of applying this principle is that identity credentials could be stored locally and securely on a user’s own computer rather than in a centralized online database.

Another example: Law #2, Minimal Disclosure for Limited Use: Data Minimization, speaks to building technical identity systems that minimize the amount of identity information used and disclosed in a given online transaction. In the privacy world, a cardinal rule is that the identification provided should be proportional to the sensitivity of the transaction and its purpose. Why should a credit card number ever be used to verify one’s age? Put another way, why isn’t there a credential that allows people to prove they’re over 65 without revealing all of their other identity information? If someone can prove she is a bona fide university student to gain preferential access to online resources at other educational institutions, then why is her name needed? These privacy-enhanced solutions are all possible under the Privacy-Embedded Laws of Identity.

“We call upon software developers, the privacy community and public policymakers to consider the Privacy-Embedded Laws of Identity closely, to discuss them publicly, and take them to heart,” Dr. Cavoukian declared. “In joining with us to promote privacy-enhanced identity solutions at a critical time in the development of the Internet and e-commerce, both privacy and identity/security will more likely be strongly protected.”

[via Canadian Privacy Law Blog]

The symposium is free and open to all. Registration instructions, and the preliminary program, can be found here.

Sponsored by:

New York University Coordinating Council for Media, Culture and Communication
New York University Steinhardt School , Department of Culture and Communication
New York University Information Law Institute
National Science Foundation PORTIA Grant CCR-0331640

1. Young people should stop putting content online.
2. Recruiters and employers shouldn’t use Google or Facebook to research potential candidates (don’t hear this one very often, although you’d think in a country where it’s illegal to ask people to include a snapshot with their resume, there might be potential room for legislation here).
3. We just have to wait until there’s no longer a divide between your “work” persona and your “life” persona. I know this sounds stupid, but I heard it from the CEO of Facebook.

Then she offers what really is happening, and what might be the best (or only) solution:

People are obfuscating personal data by using pseudonyms that can only be identified within situated, contextual networks, or by using services which allow them to restrict who can view their personal information. This is really the only one of these solutions which makes any sense.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Identity and Identification in a Networked World:
A Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Symposium

When: September 29-30, 2006
Where: New York University
Submission deadline: July 5, 2006

Increasingly, who we are is represented by key bits of information scattered throughout the data-intensive, networked world. Online and off, these core identifiers mediate our sense of self, social interactions, movements through space, and access to goods and services. There is much at stake in designing systems of identification and identity management, deciding who or what will be in control of them, and building in adequate protection for our bits of identity permeating the network.

The symposium will examine critical and controversial issues surrounding the socio-technical systems of identity, identifiability and identification. The goal is to showcase emerging scholarship of graduate students at the cutting edge of humanities, social sciences, artists, systems design & engineering, philosophy, law, and policy to work towards a clearer understanding of these complex problems, and build foundations for future collaborative work.

In addition to presenting and discussing their work, students will have the opportunity to interact with prominent scholars and professionals related to their fields of interest. The symposium will feature a keynote talk by Ian Kerr, Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law & Technology at the University of Ottawa.

Submission Information:

We invite submissions on the function of identity, identifiability and identification in the following general areas:

• Media & communication: DRM systems, e-mail & instant messaging, discussion forums

• Online: Identity 2.0, web cookies, IP logging, firewalls, personal encryption

• Social interaction: online social networks, blogging, meetups

• Consumer culture: RFID product tags, reputational systems, commercial data aggregation

• Mobility: electronic tolls, auto black boxes, RFID passports, SecureFlight, V-ID cards

• Security: video surveillance, facial recognition, biometric identification systems, national ID cards

Please submit abstracts, position pieces, demos or full papers for a 10-15 minute presentation to michael.zimmer@nyu.edu by July 5, 2006. Include contact and brief biographical information with your submission. Notification of submission acceptance will be given by July 17, 2006. Limited travel stipends will be available for presenters. Students in need of travel funds should indicate so with their submission.

Program chairs:

- Tim Schneider, JD Student, NYU School of Law
- Michael Zimmer, PhD Candidate, Dept. of Culture & Communication, NYU

Faculty advisor:

- Helen Nissenbaum, Dept. of Culture & Communication, NYU

Sponsors:

- Coordinating Council for Culture and Communications, Journalism, and Media Studies, New York University
- Department of Culture and Communication, New York University
- Information Law Institute, New York University School of Law

(download PDF version here)