bynamite is in hobby mode

4 Dec

We’re no longer working full time on Bynamite.  For the time being, we’ll keep it up as a hobby project – if you’re curious about reasons, you can read a bit more personal color here.  If you’re an active user, I’m sorry for the following changes that will be going into effect now or in the near future:

  • We won’t be updating the product in a timely fashion, if at all.
  • We won’t maintain the support forums.
  • We’ll probably close the related One Button Rule entirely.

Once again, I’m sorry we can’t continue to work on this.  I’m actively exploring other options to keep Bynamite running, but personally it won’t be my full-time occupation anymore.  If you have ideas or you’d like to help find a future for Bynamite, please feel free to comment here or send an email to info@bynamite.com.

To everyone who’s used, worked on, commented on, written about, and otherwise gave Bynamite a try, you have my deepest thanks.

because it's there

29 Oct

"Everest!!!" by jrodmanjrI’ve been asked many times why we’re trying to make Bynamite work when so many others have failed with similar plans. For a while I tried answering the way George Mallory did when they asked him why he wants to climb Mount Everest:  ”Because it’s there.”  That answer of course is insufficiently detailed, and also suffers somewhat from the trifling fact that Mallory never returned alive from his last expedition to the mountaintop.

But anyway, we’re fortunate to have the opportunity to post a more detailed answer in a larger forum:  please check out the piece in VentureBeat, “How to succeed where others have failed.”

whose life is it anyway?

19 Sep

"Wide eyed at Lloyds of London" by Ben GeachFor years, Internet companies have been been fighting over who really owns data about people who use websites. Publishers of websites believe that since consumers come to websites to view their content, publishers should control the data.  Ad networks provide systems that work across many websites, so in their view all the data belongs to the ad system, not the publisher.  Some businesses are creating marketplaces where ad systems and publishers can sell consumer data to each other. And now Apple is battling to own your data.

But who really “owns” this information?  Who owns the facts of what you like, what you buy, where you go, who you talk to – who owns your online life?

You do.

If there is a marketplace where you can sell your own data, on your terms and under your control, wouldn’t you want to take the system for whatever you’re worth?

the Mount Rushmore of "Privacy is Dead"

17 Aug
It is because we say it is. Isn't it?

It is because we say it is. Isn't it?

Fun slide from a pitch I’m making today.

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ad targeting and the benefit of your bargain

9 Aug

"Derby prefers the Carrot AND the Stick" by Carly Lesser & Art DrauglisWhen we launched our beta a few weeks ago, the New York Times was kind enough to describe our basic philosophy that you should get rewarded for your personal data.  It’s still so early on that many people aren’t sure just what that reward is supposed to be.

My favorite comments come from overseas.

I love this German statement, which appears to translate as “Privacy is Dead. Register to attend the funeral at Bynamite.

A Brazilian commentator suggests, “I feel prostituted in this new possibility of arranging the business of social networks. The good thing is that I will choose who can take advantage of my gorgeous little body!

Er . . . these are perhaps interesting directions for future versions of our product.  Let me just clarify the bargain that Bynamite makes for you right now, even in the beta version.

We offer the advertising world a simple proposition on your behalf:  ”Give me control, and I’ll give you better data – but on my terms.

You’re making a bargain for better control, and there’s a carrot-and-stick approach that might not be obvious at first.  The carrot is that when they give you control, you will give them info they can’t get without your help. The stick is that we opt you out of ad networks that don’t give you control – over a hundred different ad systems – they have to give respect to get respect.

So right now, the benefit you get is mainly the recognition that you are a force to be bargained with.  Over time, we’d like to see a world where you can get additional tangible benefits, like better recommendations, special deals, and even plain and simple money.  But the bargain starts with control – as a consumer, you’ve got to establish that the trade for your information is on your terms.  Get control first, and the world will follow. Well, maybe not the whole world . . . might have to be careful in Brazil . . .

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actions in the face of the cookie monster

2 Aug

"Domino Theory" by John MorganThis week the Wall Street Journal launched a big series about targeted online advertising.  In some corners, the “news” that advertisers track consumers was derided as breathlessly naive.  Others thought the WSJ missed the real story, studying only the supply of advertising and missing the consumer demand side.  Scott Rosenberg does a nice job of putting the various views in a ladder of reaction from ignorant fear to enlightened futurism.

We founded Bynamite because we believed that consumers would eventually see the “cookie monster” that is online advertising, but we felt that this monster doesn’t have to be feared if it can be tamed.  We knew that this year would bring a period of highly varied reaction to the increased consumer awareness of the issues – and when emotional reactions of fear and derision settle down, people will move beyond mere reaction to find clearer paths of action for consumers.  A lot of the commentary and analysis about online advertising focus on what advertisers, governments and advocates want.  But what will consumers actually do?

For consumers, there are only four kinds of actions when you see the cookie monster coming:

Block Everything

Some people will just want to block out all advertising, and anything that enables it.  For these folks, there are AdBlock, NoScript, BetterPrivacy, and a host of other tools, most of which are free.  But acting only to block advertising will never be successful, because it’s like trying to win an arms race with only a shield.  And a flimsy shield at that – truly blocking information from getting to advertisers would require “going off the grid” in a way that few people are willing to do.  Unless you are willing to stop using the Internet, cell phones, bank accounts, credit cards, loyalty cards, coupons – you are not going to avoid giving your information to advertisers.

Trust Everything

There are two kinds of people in the “trust everything” camp, and ironically they don’t even know they’re in the same camp – if they did they’d probably object to each other’s cooties.  One kind are the folks who loudly claim that “Privacy Is Dead” so you might as well just give all your information to everyone anyway.  The other kind are folks who remain ignorant, for whatever reason, of everything that is going on around them.  What these people have in common is that they’ll let anything happen to their information, and whether the reason is sophisticated futurism or hopeless ignorance, the outcome is the same:  Advertisers get the information easily and do whatever they want with it.  We think both views here make unrealistic assumptions about how most people think of their online lives.

Appeal to the Government

Some people, when faced with commercial developments that don’t align with their own judgments of fairness, will look to the government to impose laws and regulations to protect a certain view of consumer interests.  We think that’s admirable behavior in many cases.  But it doesn’t happen to be our cup of tea. Government regulation is definitely part of the equation, but we’ve always been folks that like to compete to serve customers, not have the government decide what customers should have.

Choose a Better Mousetrap

"statue 2" by Les HutchinsGiven the understanding that blocking is imperfect, that promiscuous trust is unsatisfying, that the government rarely provides the fastest or best solution – we believe that consumers will choose a commercial product that restores their power, that turns advertising from a nuisance to a mutually beneficial engagement.

This is certainly an unfinished puzzle from our point of view, but we believe that if someone builds a better solution, consumers will choose it.  We believe all this talk about privacy is merely an expression of market demand that continues to go unfilled.  That demand is too great to go unfilled for much longer:  someone is going to figure out how to build a revolutionary mousetrap here – one that turns the consumers from mice into the kings of the advertising jungle.

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how to win the cookie wars

19 Jul

You might think you know everything you need to know about “cookies,” but have you ever thought about what it would take to make them work for consumers rather than advertisers?

In the simplest terms, cookies are tiny pieces of information that enable websites to remember something about a web browser. Some people think that cookies are evil, though the adverting industry wants you to think of them more like a friendly waitress that knows what you want.  Some people just hate advertising and want to block anything that enables any kind of ad.

At Bynamite, we don’t hate advertising – we just think that much of the Internet has become a giant battleground over consumer data, and the consumers have no voice in this war.  We have watched advertisers, websites, and marketplaces battle over the cookie, each one claiming that they own the data and should get the economic benefit from that data.  But whose data is this, doesn’t it really all come from the consumers? What would have to happen to make the Internet treat consumers as the true masters of their own information?

We don’t think the answer is to hide from advertisers.  Millions of people use tools like AdBlock, NoScript, BetterPrivacy, Ghostery and TACO to prevent seeing online ads and block advertisers from personalizing ads. We think these are great tools, but they are only playing defense in a battle that requires offense to win.

Consumers can only compete by uniting in a give-and-take with the advertising world.  So you have cookies? Use them for you, not just for what they want.  Bynamite uses cookies and tracks online purchases, but does so in a way that gives you more control over the information that advertisers have about you.  We only work with advertising systems that give consumers transparency and control, and we opt you out of over a hundred systems that don’t allow you to easily see and change the information that they have about you.  We’re trying to make a fair trade that will bring some balance to the Internet advertising world, so that consumer interests are at least as powerful as advertiser decisions.

We’re interested in changing the landscape for everyone, not just for sophisticated users who manage their cookies and install blocking tools.  The more people who use Bynamite, the more advertisers will want to change their systems to give consumers more transparency and control – and even people who don’t use Bynamite will benefit from that.

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how do you know who cares?

3 Jun

Low participation in Quit Facebook Day has led some to claim that “no one really cares“ about privacy – the argument seems to be that since Facebook didn’t lose many accounts, that must mean that people don’t care. The author asserts:"I think I don't care" by VanessaO

Go ahead. Name me one company of a significant size whose business suffered due to its treatment of people’s private data.  Unless I’m missing something, you can’t. . . . In the online world, I can’t name a single significant company that had a problem. They pay lip service to being concerned about privacy, but, in fact, a small number of verbal people whine, but very few leave. If a site is useful, most people (not you, the smart readers of this blog, but average everyday people) vaguely wonder about what happened, but won’t give up their site.

Never mind that the claim is transparently self-serving and ignorant of actual research, let’s try to repeat the same argument in other contexts.

No one really cares about poisonous chemicals in their food.  I can’t think of a single company that failed due to pesticide use. Never mind the $23 billion in organic food sales in the U.S.

No one really cares about security flaws in operating systems or web browsers.  I can’t think of a single company that failed due to computer security issues.  Never mind the $16 billion in security software sales.

No one really cares about paying taxes.  I can’t think of a single government that failed due to tax assessment and collection.  Never mind that whole taxation without representation flap a few hundred years ago.

This is silly.  The question of whether or not people care about something is not answered by asking whether businesses fail when they don’t provide that something.  A better answer can be found in asking whether businesses can be formed around providing that something.

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Facebook is not the problem – it's too easy to fix!

19 May

I’ve had mixed feelings about the recent Facebook controversies.  In case you missed it, many people are saying that Facebook has gone rogue – led by amoral management, they’ve pushed radical transparency upon unwilling users, hiding their moves behind a everchanging array of bewildering settings.

I’m glad to see so many people beginning to grapple with the fact that they’ve given their information away to services that are too hard to control.

But it would be a mistake to think that Facebook is the problem.  For one thing, the problem that Facebook poses here is too easy to fix.  On May 7, I told a group of people at PrivacyCamp that Bynamite could give them a “one button” solution to fix Facebook privacy.

The Friends Only ButtonTwelve days later, we’ve launched The One Button Rule.  The ”Friends Only” button automatically changes all your settings to Friends Only, and monitors those settings to make sure that Facebook doesn’t change them back.  There are several other solutions available as well – of course I think that ours is the easiest and most effective (we’re the only ones that automatically monitor and fix all settings), but go ahead and try them all and decide for yourself.

My point isn’t that the Friends Only button is the best; my point is that once people got motivated, it took less than a couple of weeks to see many solutions appear.  No matter how they try, Facebook really can’t deny people what we want – if people really want something, solutions will be made on the market to give it.  Even Facebook sees the writing on the wall at this point, promising that they’ll make privacy simple.

You may or may not trust them, given their history.  Nevertheless, the new solutions will win out and force Facebook to do the right thing.

But these easy fixes are only addressing the tip of the iceberg.  Facebook is only the most visible service that constantly collects and uses your information in ways you don’t understand and can’t control.  The mass of this iceberg is still under water, and we are all still heading towards it.  This is a hard problem to see, to understand, and to explain – and that’s our larger mission.  Bynamite is still in rough beta, but in a few weeks we’ll launch a new version and we’ll have a lot more to say.

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privacy law: clowns to the left, jokers to the right

4 May

Lawmakers have introduced new privacy legislation that apparently no one likes.  Technology and media companies complain that the legislation could devastate the Internet as we know it.  Privacy advocates rant about the “Orwellian” misdirection they see in the proposal.

I think it can be a great sign when everybody’s unhappy with legislation like this.  It might mean that the lawmakers aren’t in anybody’s pocket – they might actually be trying to make something that works for the people, rather than trying to just make campaign money or pander for votes.

The government, the industry, and the advocates all say they want to help me.  The problem is that none of these people have a vested interest in making it easy for me:  the government is about bureaucracy rather than ease of use, the industry makes more money when I’m confused, and the advocates prefer being right to making me happy.

Personally, I’m not waiting for the law to protect my interests, and I’m not just going to trust the industry, and I’m not getting as nutty as the advocates.  I understand that technology is often used in ways I don’t like, but I also know that I can use technology to get what I want.  I want to know what advertisers know about me, I want to be able to see that data and control it.

I want it to be easy, even kinda fun.  That’s the kind of solution I want to find – let the clowns and jokers at the extremes argue with each other, there’s a great solution in the middle that would work for the rest of us.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/8StG4fFWHqg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

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