After thinking further on the coming keyword apocalypse, I’ve realized that my previous thinking has been too narrow. I have, in other places, talked a lot about how the decline in keyword data may affect the future of search engine optimization. For those who haven’t been following, Google has decided to restrict what information is […]

In this series we’ve looked at privacy, identity, and anonymity from several angles. In Part I, we looked at the sense of creepiness that comes from big entities tracking our actions—even if they are giving us value in return. Part II separates anonymity from privacy, and explains more about what anonymity is and how it […]

Most clients are aware that they need to make a decision about a content management system as part of their website development or redesign process. Often they have strong opinions about which one they need. Most developers have a pretty good idea of the ins and outs of various CMS platforms. Many have a favorite. […]

One consequence of the government shutdown is that some popular federal agency websites have disappeared. Others are still available, though every one we tried at least had some kind of notice about the shutdown in place. The shutdown of many of the websites was predicted online. This Washington Post article is a good summary. Taking a […]

Often discussions about online privacy assume that we should all maximize our privacy settings and never give up any information, but for some reason we don’t. If you look up a bunch of articles on the topic, many will have a list of tips that you can use to supposedly keep people from tracking you. […]

Four words can kill a brilliantly innovative approach, scuttle a long-term project, and add unexpected time and cost to a marginal project: “Is it 508 compliant?” If you much work on web content, or electronic documents of any kind, in DC you will eventually hear section 508 invoked—and you will see the effect this invocation […]

Working out of Affinity Lab has many advantages, one of which is the chance to meet interesting people who drop in periodically. Yesterday, mayoral candidate and city councilperson Tommy Wells dropped by. Here he is meeting Sean Perkins, Mobility Labs owner, and Dan Jeffers.

When I went away to the Navy, I took the opportunity most of us take when we leave home; I changed myself. We all did. In boot camp, the first thing they did was really clamp down on fighting. You would think that might temper everything, but without the threat of real violence, we all […]

Privacy is somewhat distinct from anonymity in that it refers to our ability to control who sees information about us. The sense we have about privacy is fairly modern. In many cultures it was normal for your family, village, or tribe to know everything about you—in fact, to have a right to such knowledge. Marriage […]

Anonymity is Not Privacy Anonymity and privacy are not the same thing. There is overlap. While the ability to be anonymous is related to privacy, they are different. Failure to recognize this difference has confused many discussions about online privacy. Privacy is often passive. We have data out there, some of it public, some of […]