Last week, Amazon Web Services announced its Import/Export service would be openly available, in order to facilitate the movement of data to and from the cloud. The catch: it appears as though the fastest way to transfer large amounts of data is by mailing a storage device to Amazon. As Amazon itself noted when they launched the Import/Export service, “it would take over 80 days to upload just 1TB of data over a T1 connection.” Sponsor Using the mail to move data in and out of the cloud seems like a low-tech solution to a high-tech problem: infinitely scalable cloud resources mean little when broadband capabilities make it difficult to get information in and out. What are your thoughts on Amazon’s solution to lengthy upload and download times? What do you think about mailing your data to the cloud? survey software Discuss

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Our ReadWriteWeb Real-Time Web Summit at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City will kick off with a keynote by our own co-editor and VP of content development Marshall Kirkpatrick this morning. Marshall plans to address some of the myths that surround the real-time Web and share his thoughts about its future. Our friends at Justin.tv will provide a live stream of the keynote, which will start around 9:30am ET. Sponsor Throughout the day, we will also stream selected sessions here . Watch the Real-Time Web Summit in a new window. Watch live video from ReadWriteWeb Real-Time Web Summit on Justin.tv Real-Time Conversations Conversations about the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit will be taking place all over the Web. Tag your Tweets, pictures, and blog posts with #RWWSummit to show up here. Discuss

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AT&T’s announcement that it will begin offering mobile tethering to additional devices for a fee but will stop offering unlimited data plans to new customers is being called cynical and anti-consumer. But the cap is 2 GB a month, with extra GB available for an extra $10 if you go over. Are you concerned this will be a problem? “The announcement comes at a time,” media watchdog Free Press said in a statement today, “when the company’s investments as a percentage of its revenues are steadily declining, indicating that AT&T is choosing to manage scarcity and ration its network, rather than build to meet users’ needs.” But do users need more than 2 GB a month? Sponsor Are You Concerned About AT&T’s New Data Plans & Limits? online survey You can see how much data you use by going into your AT&T account and looking at “past activity.” I’m willing to bet you fall far below 2 GB of monthly data usage. But what about a future of live video streaming to and from mobile devices, video chat and unforeseeable data-intensive innovations? All video delivered all over the web? If it’s going to be a data-intensive, mobile and real-time future – it may be time to crank up our expectations and capacity – not limit data available to consumers. Free Press Policy Counsel M. Chris Riley issued the following statement, which intuitively sounds pretty compelling: “While AT&T asserts that its high-end 2 GB cap will only impact the heaviest users, the fact is that today’s heavy user is tomorrow’s average user. Internet overcharging schemes like the one AT&T proposes will discourage innovative new uses and stifle healthy growth in the mobile broadband economy. It is price gouging for AT&T to charge the low-end users $15 per 200 MB, and to charge $20 for tethering capability even if no additional capacity is used. This pricing system is clearly divorced from the actual underlying cost of service. “If there was true competition in the U.S. mobile market, providers would invest in their networks to keep pace with consumer demand, removing the need to implement usage-based pricing plans. The fact that AT&T can introduce an Internet overcharging scheme that bears no resemblance to the cost of operating the network, despite constant complaints about the network’s quality, further demonstrates that our wireless markets are not competitive. Unfortunately, until the FCC takes seriously the need to promote meaningful competition in the wireless industry, Americans will continue to face a market of high prices and poor service. “This pricing ploy further illustrates why we need the FCC to put an end to the anti-consumer practice of handset exclusivity. For the wireless market to be competitive, consumers must be free to choose both devices and services, and take their devices to any compatible network.” What do you think? Do you think this is an anti-competitive blow against the future, or do you think a 2 GB limit is just fine for now? Please share your thoughts. Photo by Flickr user magerleagues . Discuss

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When Twitter COO, Dick Costolo announced on Monday that they were making some changes to their terms of service for developers, prohibiting third-party networks from advertising in users’ streams, many in the tech industry initially reacted by saying that the move would spell the end of a number of startups who were providing exactly that service. Twitter claims it made this move in order to preserve the quality of the user experience on the platform. But how does this announcement impact others working in the Twitter ecosystem? Sponsor Despite some of the initial doomsday reactions about how the changing TOS would impact developers, a couple of prominent companies have since come forward saying that it’s “business as usual.” Those were the exact words, in fact, that Ad.ly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh used in a blog post on the subject. And in an interview with Louis Gray, MyLikes CEO Bindu Reddy made a similar argument: her company’s service don’t violate the new TOS. Twitter API Lead Ryan Sarver admits , the language in the new TOS is “nuanced.” But whether or not this language is clarified, it remains to be seen if this change by Twitter, coming so close on the heels of their purchase of Tweetie and release of official Twitter mobile apps, will scare off either developers or investors. VC Mark Suster wrote on his blog today that he’s “not abandoning the ecosystem.” But Hunch co-founder Chris Dixon tweeted that he’d heard other investors saying that they would steer clear of Twitter. Whether it’s “erratic behavior” as Dixon contends or just “bad marketing” of policy changes as Suster thinks, it does seem like Twitter might have a hard time maintaining (or regaining) the trust of third-party developers. If you’re a startup working in the Twitter ecosystem, what are your thoughts on these developments? Discuss

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg penned a public statement about Facebook privacy issues and what’s being done by way of an article published in today’s Washington Post . In the brief, carefully crafted mea culpa, Zuckerberg addresses the ongoing privacy backlash the site is now facing: “we just missed the mark,” he says, referring to the overly complex, granular privacy settings and controls that offer toggles for everything from search engine visibility to whether or not your photo albums can be seen by your boss. Sponsor What wasn’t addressed, however, was why the need for clearer, easier-to-use privacy settings became such an urgent matter in the first place . And that is Facebook’s steamroller approach to forcing people into public sharing, a corporate philosophy that seems less about impact to the bottom line and more about fulfilling Zuckerberg’s personal vision for a more social web: “If people share more, the world will become more open and connected,” writes Zuckberberg in the article. “And a world that’s more open and connected is a better world.” New Privacy Settings Coming Taking a big picture view of the issue at hand, an “open and connected” world may indeed be a better one. But in the harsh light of everyday reality, the situation isn’t as rosy. As social media researcher danah boyd (yes, that’s how she spells it) notes in a recent blog post, “Zuckerberg doesn’t know how to resolve the positive (and in his head inevitable) outcomes of transparency with the possible challenges of surveillance.” Taking it to the extreme, she points to an example of the dangerous outcomes: ” When a father in Saudi Arabia caught his daughter interacting with men on Facebook, he killed her. ” (The example was pulled from the upcoming book, ” The Facebook Effect ,” by David Kirkpatrick, the “inside story” about Facebook’s creation.) But you don’t have to go that far to see the potential dangers of an over-sharing user base who thinks they’re penning short missives that will only be read by a closed group of friends. For example: these people are talking about doing the drug “salvia ,” these people prefer smoking pot , these women are cheating on their husband (or are being cheated on by him), these people hate their boss , these people just came out of the closet , these people hate gays , these people are either joking or serious about being an alcoholic , these people are taking an HIV test , and so on. (Click through on those links and you’ll find full names and photos to accompany each status update. We won’t publish specific examples here, however). Outside of a handful of exhibitionists, the people cited above likely believe what they’re sharing is private. They are mistaken. And what will easier privacy settings do for these people, these, the unconcerned mainstream masses that are the bulk of Facebook’s 400+ million active users? The answer is nothing because they don’t even know their privacy is being violated to begin with. They don’t know the “recommended settings” Facebook prompted users to accept starting late last year made everything of consequence public from status updates to photos. They don’t know that their “likes” are now public . They don’t know that their thoughts are indexed by new, public-facing search engines like OpenBook , OneRiot and Booshaka . And they won’t care until something bad happens. Bad, as in “losing one’s job, losing one’s health insurance, losing one’s parental rights, losing one’s relationships, etc.” writes boyd, offering more down-to-earth suggestions of potential damages. Missing the Point: Damage has been Done To those who don’t follow the privacy issues on Facebook closely, the Zuckerberg letter appears to address the issue well enough – easier privacy tools are coming? Great! – but that misses the point. What’s more important is what’s not being said. Reading between the lines, it’s clear that Facebook is not rolling back any of its previous changes. It’s not resetting people’s profile to “private,” it’s not switching off the “instant personalization” feature, it’s not changing to an opt-in model. And while Facebook won’t confirm that this is the case, (n the record, that is), it’s obvious to anyone who’s clued in to Facebook’s overall agenda what’s going on here: Zuckerberg will have his way. He will see his vision realized. At at the end of day, the net effect of all this “openness” may, in fact, be a better world. But getting there will be hard, and people’s lives may be damaged in the process. Do those affected have only themselves to blame for putting online thoughts that should have remained in their heads? Perhaps. But Facebook once told its users it was a safe place to share these things…and sadly, many people believed that was true. Discuss

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