In a landmark report issued last month, the United Nations has declared Internet access to be a human right and come out swinging against attempts by states and private actors to curb freedom of expression online. Authored by special rapporteur Frank LaRue, and described by The Atlantic as a "tip of the hat to Wikileaks and its campaign for transparency", the report is nothing less than scathing in its assessment of a number of online trends, including Obama's war against whistleblowers, Facebook's real name requirement and aggressive intellectual property laws that criminalize users and allow governments to seize foreign domain names.

Coming both in the wake of the Arab Spring -- in which online communication played a vital role -- and at a time when online censorship and filtering is creeping steadily westward, LaRue's writing is refreshingly radical. However, it raises a number of important questions, not the least of which is whether the report will be heeded. Will governments be willing to take a U-turn in their policy making, or will this simply be another example of the impotency of the UN?

As well, how do we begin to conceive of the Internet as a universal human right? After all, bandwith, infrastructure, regulatory regimes, market structures and literacies -- all terms that could be lumped under the umbrella of "access" -- vary tremendously as one moves across the globe. Also, it is even sensible to declare Internet access a right when so many other "rights" -- including clean water and sanitation -- are not being met in many parts of the global south?

While the web continues to deliver a new world of wonders, the one persistent and pervasive problem is the ongoing erosion of our privacy. The social web is opening up new frontiers for data to find its way from private hands into the public. Whether this is voluntary, or involuntary, it is foisting a new era of transparency onto a society that so far seems entirely unprepared.

The reality is that in spite of our general euphoria and embrace of social media we do still value privacy both personally and organizationally. Indeed most organizations are nowhere near ready to operate under the type of scrutiny and transparency that public officials are now subject to. Wikileaks as a cultural phenomena may represent a watershed of corporate information that will start to be leaked either as a public service, or just to disrupt and sabotage.

Privacy therefore is ripe for a rebound, along with a re-assessment of how we can protect and pursue the values associated with it. The notion of privacy-by-design speaks to the need to integrate privacy considerations into the heart of a product, service, or process, rather than appending it as if it were a nuisance one has to adhere to. Yet the expected expansion of data retention laws also makes it difficult to protect this privacy when massive pools of data are mandated into existence.

This will be our first teleseminar in a longer series that discusses our research project "The Future of Authority" and the issues surrounding it. For this first discussion we'll be looking at the power of Anonymity, and the role of sites like 4chan that help gather and articulate this phenomena. We'll also touch briefly upon related decision making methods, such as xerocracy, and it's role in creating cryptohierarchies. The focus for this discussion as a whole will be how this relates back to markets, and the risk that brands face from militant and organized consumers.