Useful Void

The Harvard professor Viktor Mayer-Schöenberger thinks the internet should learn to forget. He argues that because trivial and private information has died with people for millennia, the web—which has become a repository of everything both trivial and private about each of us—shouldn’t change that potential for a “useful void.” He is advocating for “data ecology” which would, among other things, allow people to privately use the web without leaving a public (and permanent) record of their every move therein. Good news for anyone who’s ever tasted the noxious mix of scotch and MySpace.