Yesterday was my last day at Microsoft. You can read more at Dick Hardt dot org.

Now that I am not constrained by Microsoft policies, I plan on writing about a variety of topics that have been bubbling in my head for the past year. OpenID v Next, Company Culture, Online Privacy etc.

As for this site, the “2.0″ branding seems so last decade now. I will be putting this identity into stasis and doing all my new writing at Dick Hardt dot org, where I will discuss how digital identity is becoming reality.

Any conversation about identity leads to a conversation about privacy. Identity by its nature is a very personal topic, and people are concerned about who can see what about them. In the past, the high friction in moving information provided some privacy protection. Now, as more of our identity becomes digital and the friction in moving it around has dropped dramatically, the risk of privacy issues has subsequently increased.

Facebook is an iconic example of the intersection of identity and privacy. There are internal and external applications that enable the user to easily share an unprecedented variety of information about themselves., with the brand promise that the the user is able to control who can see what information about them.

Some of you may be familiar with the privacy problem I had with Facebook last spring. (no, I’m not going to provide a link to it, since I would prefer it just went away – so please don’t go looking for it!) Although there was a basis to start a legal action, I prefer solving problems rather than complain about them. I had a productive conversation with the team on Facebook, a company that takes privacy very seriously. I provided them with feedback on how to improve some of their processes, and they asked me to review their new Privacy Policy, which was just published today.

The new policy makes it more clear what will happen when, and directs the reader to where they can make adjustments if they prefer settings other then the defaults.

Doing my usual Facebook maintenance tonight and I see another intriguing advertisement. The mix of the hot chicks and making more money got me wondering what it was all about. Was this an ad for swim suit models? Who could be behind such an ad?

Well, it is my “old friend” Jeff who is now is “Dave Williams from Bellevue , WA”. Interesting. I live in Bellevue WA as well. Nice targeted marketing Dave/Jeff/Kevin. Even though he is now Dave, the image filename is still “about_jeff.gif” He still is showing the “stimulus” check that he got from the US Treasury. Guessing he got that check (yeah, right), figured out how to run ads on Facebook and Google to get paid to send people to a site selling a kit to make money from Google. This sounds like the kit that Dave/Jeff/Kevin bought where he learned he could make money sending other people to buy the kit. Image of ad below. Link was http://davegetsgreen.com/.