listening to michel biezunski and steve newcomb. some of the things they said can already be read at xmlhack.

one thing to add: the reference model enables to merge diverse knowledge assets. steve newcomb mentioned his talk with a spy agency. there they brought the model in connection with the problem: different groups write osama differently: some with an o, some with an u. having these groups defined as topic map a and topic map b you can merge them to topic map c, to get all their information about this or another particular person in one big map. for me that feature maybe sounds like fun for control-freaks, but not for humanity and could lead to an even bigger mess.

it´s functioning because - and that is his explanation: whenever a node in topic map a has the same subject as a node in topic map b, all of the assertions made about both nodes in both topic maps are made about a single node in the resulting merged topic map c. if each of the original nodes had assertions connecting them both to any single subject-indicating resource (binding point), the merge can occur automatically, without human intervention.

(what he calles a node other call topic, vertices or vertexes)

more on topic maps

I think it is unavoidable (tho unfortunate) that if we develop better information systems we also develop better spyware, as the latter is nothing but an application of the former.

The only remedy I can think of is to openly disclose the capabilities of the systems and to distribute the tools as broadly as possible to at least ensure fairness in tool capacity ...