Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
This is a great article describing clearly how the semantic web will change our relation to information - and to each other. As I read this article, I began to sense how what I will call "semantic opacity" will be necessary for the semantic web to work properly. In the new semantic web, everyone will have access to statements like "[Citibank] says (Scott Rahin) is (Trustworthy)" and "[The Sherriff's Department of Dallas, Texas] says (Dave Trebuchet) has (Bounced Checks)." But do I want the world to know what Citibank or some Sheriff's department thinks about me? Semantic opacity is the idea that not all information is available to everyone always; it is a sort of screen or information fog that keeps people on an essentially "need to know" basis. The semantic web won't work without it.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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