The Guardian

London:

The trouble with entering contact details on to a computer is that it needs keeping up to date. If you have a few friends, this isn’t a problem; if you’re into the hundreds or thousands, then the task can be overwhelming. This is why a number of enterprising types have set up software and online services that allow people to update their addresses, phone numbers and other details automatically. You join Plaxo, Cardfile.org, CardScan’s AccuCard or a similar service, and mail all of your contacts, who can update their details at leisure.

Unless, of course, they won’t play, either because they get too many requests or are not sure what will happen to the data they provide. This is where what could become a substantial market appears to be stalling. Security consultant Robert Schifreen, author of website Securitysavvy.com, sums it up well: “You get an obviously system-generated

message, and if I reply to that with my details, I don’t know how many other people are

going to get them.”

Like a lot of people, Schifreen uses the phrase “Big Brother-ish”, and has reservations about taking his time to do something that will only benefit the sender, not him. In fact, many of the data security undertakings made by Plaxo and others are rigorous. Plaxo’s president, Sean Parker, denies that the company sells data, and confirms that, contractually, any business that acquires the company will be bound by the same strictures. Independent observers agree. “Plaxo talks a good game,” says Simon Halberstam, partner and head of e-commerce law at solicitors Sprecher Grier Halberstam LLP & Weblaw. “If they do everything (their terms and conditions) say they do, they have a pretty decent privacy policy.”

It therefore seems there are no rational objections, until you remember that most of the organisations offering these services are based in the US. Emma Shipp, partner at Halbertsam’s company, explains: “European data law is much stronger than in the US. In the UK, for example, we have a data protection registrar; there is no equivalent in America.” In other words, the undertakings around privacy expressed by Plaxo are contractual rather than legal, and if an issue arose, enforcing them could be tricky.

Midentity founder Simon Grice believes there is much in the product for people who are responsible for their own IT, although he freely concedes that elements of resistance are inevitable. “There is always resistance to any new technology or service,” he says.

There remain pockets of uncertainty. Professor Roger Clark, principal of Xanax Consultancy in Canberra, has written a paper querying whether the companies offering the services fully appreciate the issues surrounding personal data and the networks being set up. And while many potential participants’ objections may seem more emotional than rational — Schifreen happily concedes that if he got into it, he could find the services useful — they will still tend to ignore requests to update people’s information for them.

Grice, meanwhile, believes a configurable service that lets you share what information you want with whom you choose will reflect the way people want to communicate in future. Whether enough users are ready to trust both the technology and the suppliers to make this a mainstream technology remains to be seen.