Privacy and Information Markets: Controlling Information Flows in Decentralized Social Networking

The contribution motivates a substantial conceptual overlap between privacy control and potential information markets in decentralized contextual Social Networking and suggests substituting appropriate means for controlling outgoing and incoming information flows as the key problem of both points of view. An XACML-based approach for information flow control is suggested based on social conventions and involving traceable signed speech acts and sticky policies based on long- and short term social contexts, spatio-temporal regions and digital IDs as basic building blocks. An analysis of the basic micro-economics of information markets based on such a flow control approach shows how price building mechanisms and other characteristics of these markets may contribute to privacy and information quality.