Fashion, Kaioo and the social networking privacy revolt

"You are not in my extended network" T-shirt available here.

The revolt against commercialized social networks has been getting a bit of media play, particularly following the backlash against Facebook's Beacon ad system.  In today's International Herald Tribune: a feature on Kaioo, a nonprofit social network designed to serve as a more-or-less noncommercial alternative.  Of particular interest:  note who's funding it.

The founders pledge that its mission is to create an international haven from networks like Facebook and MySpace, where advertising and the sales pitch are becoming as elemental a social ritual as flirting. And Kaioo says all the profit it might make from limited advertising will be donated to charity.

"Users want to have an independent, democratic system that they feel is theirs," said Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, chief executive of the music giant Sony BMG, who is financing the initial start-up of Kaioo out of his own pocket with €500,000, or $730,000. "The biggest asset that we have is credibility and this platform can only grow if users feel that this is real and totally independent."

There's a conceptual link here to politics, where the emerging conflation of independence with wealth.  Autonomy: the ultimate luxury good?