Last week Google announced their new privacy policy to the world. The changes in the way that Google combines and uses information one shares with its services is effective in less than a month, on March the 1st. There is a few absolutely basic facts that every Internet user (be it a Google ID user or not) should be aware of in the context of the change, and I will try to brief them here. I would love to learn and understand how exactly non-profit organizations will be affected by the new policy -- I understand that this is a very complex issue, and it is still hard to distill how this situation will be different and unique for the civil sector in particular. It doesn’t make the questions any less important or urging for an answer though. The new Google Privacy Policy run about 10,000 words, and I strongly recommend the read.

Starting March 1st any information that Google engines tracked so far, and used for customizing a specific tool of your use (e.g. you must have noted the search results being differently positioned based on how you used the engine before) will be now available almost across the entire spectrum of Google products: “If you're signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services (...). In short, we'll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”-- Google's director of privacy, product and engineering, Alma Whitten wrote in a blog post. 

On 21-22 of October the capital of Poland hosted the biggest Open Government Data (OGD) event in the world this year. It was organized by the Open Knowledge Foundation with the cooperation of Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt Polska (link Polish only). There were more than 250 people from 41 countries. You could talk to techies, members of transparency-oriented NGOs, journalists, social activists, government officials, EU Commission representatives and so on.

This week, the world’s population reached a staggering 7 billion people. In a new campaign to raise awareness about the challenges -- and opportunities -- in a world of 7 billion, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has urged the world to take action to reduce the disparities in which hundreds of millions of people in developing and least developed nations lack the most basic ingredients for a decent life.

Facilitated by the knowledgeable and engaging Wendy Grossman and Javier Ruiz, the NetSquared London Meetup on Data Privacy surfaced some important, useful and informative discussion. One thing that was made clear is that there is a lot that the average person and nonprofit is unaware of on this issue. There is also a lot that those who are familiar with the issues (including those involved in the use of data for good) are struggling to address. Data privacy goes beyond the big players to middlemen, and beyond the lone hacker to organised crime. It is being driven by commercialism and government interests and laws are failing to keep up.  We discussed the importance of identifying your threat threshold as each person and organisation depending on their activities, interests and level of obscurity may require a different approach to data privacy.

By Keisha Taylor. This was originally posted on the GuideStar International blog

As Internet and mobile access grows, more data is made open online. It is being used and analyzed by the media, the private sector, governments, and civil society organizations to inform their decisions. Open data, real time data, and linked data are being discussed in many forums. And so are the ways in which governments, civil society organizations, and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) can work with the private sector to benefit the public using the data analysis. Data-related events are highlighting the value of data and are addressing technical, design, political, reliability, validity, and inclusion issues that arise with its disclosure.

Maps have emerged as an important asset in publicly revealing data and information needed for development efforts at the community, national, regional and international level. They have become a useful way of providing and finding information on what exists and where.   Private companies like Google for instance have been collaborating with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) to help unveil the power of statistics in the region. They have been working with UNECA to provide train the trainer events throughout the African continent, which can aid the development of collection and use of statistics using not only mobile applications but Google Map Maker, Google Earth Google Maps, Google fusion tables, and Public Data Explorer.  This is also proving useful for mapping of the vast African landscape is in the face of lack of street names and route numbers for instance. Local knowledge is key to this type of mapping for development effort.

Do you like to build cool things with cool people based on cool ideas that help the world? If the answer is yes, then you need to check out the upcoming Open Data Hackathon. It's a grassroots and distributed network of events across the world all with the same goal in mind: to write applications using open public data to show support for and encourage the adoption open data policies by the world's local, regional and national governments.

Sound like something you want to get involved with? Here are the details:

We all know that it’s important to collect information about our donors, vendors, volunteers, partners, and members. But we don’t always have a good system for capturing this information. In the perfect world our data would be stored all in the same place, in the same way, and be easily accessible by key staff and board members. It would also show relationships and connections.

Josh Catone (@Catone) recently shared a post on Mashable entitled, How To Use the Web for Socially Responsible Shopping. In the post, Josh profiled nine sites that “offer information for the conscious consumer about the companies and products we buy every day.”

Josh did an excellent job highlighting and bringing together an array of awesome tools: Knowmore, GoodGuide, Crocodyl, ClimateCounts, Transnationale, Corporate Critic, Citizens Market, Do the Right Thing, and Source Map.

And then in the comments, the Mashable community shared more great resources: Tuggly, MadeinNations, Business & Human Rights, EthiScore, Vanno, GreenLighted, and Zumer.

As well, there are even more useful sites which feature green & sustainability ratings – like 3rdWhale & GenGreen (who announced a partnership last night) GreenAmerica, Bilumi, BadBuster, & SustainLane. The list definitely goes on!

The thing is, after you read the post – you're left wondering: “Who is bringing all this data together?”

Who's making it easy to search across these sites? Who's working on making sense of the data – to potentially create aggregate profiles or scores. Who's working on open standards and formats so sites can talk to each other? Who's facilitating an Open API (like the Social Actions API & WiserEarth API) – to spread this information where it can be most relevant online? Who's figuring out the business & collaboration models so open sharing can be more likely to happen?

Catone's post changes the game because it forces us to look at the green shopping sector as a whole and wonder how we can help take it to the next level.

What do you think? How can we support and leverage this exploding sector to ultimately empower millions of people to shop in ways that create a better environmental & social impact?

Excited for your thoughts!

Rufus Pollock, co-founder of the Open Knowledge Foundation (and Cambridge University economist) talks about the importance of making data and information open and useful to the world.