The buzzword of buzzwords is currently “the cloud”. Sometimes it is portrayed as if the cloud will solve most of our problems. The use of the cloud also brings forth the issue of access vs. ownership. The cloud will not only be used to store things you already own, it will also act as an important distribution hub for various types of content, not to mention the information we ourselves upload, for instance through social media. But what happens to our privacy when we do this? And what incentives do companies that run their businesses in the cloud have to protect the privacy of their customers? Is it even in their best interest to do so? Services like Spotify, Voddler and Facebook argue that people increasingly value access over ownership. An aspect of this is that whenever we decide to consume some kind of media our choices and preferences are recorded by the provider. Gradually we become profiled and that information is highly valuable in terms of marketing and customized offers. It is with the profiles of Facebook’s 750 million users that the real value lies. But if users decided to protect their personal information to a greater extent the value of that body of users will diminish. Issues have therefore over the years been raised about Facebook’s strategies on how users are encouraged to share their information. Last year at D8 Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed on stage by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. During the months leading up to the conference the issue of privacy on the internet had been heavily debated in newspapers and other media outlets. Not least was it discussed that many users complained about Facebook’s overly complex privacy settings. I believe the problems Mark Zuckerberg had in answering the questions says something fundamental about how issues of privacy is looked upon and treated by the cloud companies. As is pointed out in the second clip below (yes I know it is fiction…:) privacy will be a huge issue over the coming decades and as such we should not treat it lightly.