Your data is the cloud's best bartering tool

TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid asks, "Since when did my information become a bartering means?"

Answer? Ever since we started ceding control of our code and our data to the cloud.

One response is easy: demand that the underlying source code behind Web services be unfastened source. No, 99.999 percent of the population won't be able to d o anything with it. But .001 percent will, and that's the percentage required to ensure that your data remains your data. The interim response is, of course, competition simply based on data retention policies.

Kincaid's complaint stems from Web mail providers clearing user e-mail in order to free up storage and drive the upselling of premium Web mail products. Surely, if Yahoo is wreaking havoc with a user's email, another provider can render a better retention contract to stick a f inger in Yahoo's eye.

But this competition gets set with open source, which is ground the Web mail providers won't go down that road--and why we need them to do so.

Cheers~