The NSA and MLB have more in common right now than most may realize. They are both engaged in defining our individual and collective relationship to data in an electronically networked world.

The New York Times reports today that Major League Baseball is suing a small, online fantasy baseball company in an attempt to claim that the statistics and names of players are the property of MLB:

"...the Internet arm of Major League Baseball...says that anyone using players' names and performance statistics to operate a fantasy league commercially must purchase a license. The St. Louis company counters that it does not need a license because the players are public figures whose statistics are in the public domain."

At first glance this might seem to have nothing to do with what I usually write about in this blog, but at the core this is about the relationship between data and identity, and who owns either. To say that David Ortiz (as of 6:30 5-16) has twelve home runs is very similar to saying that one of my recent entries had 2 comments (though far less impressive). These are statitistical data, yet behind the numbers lie an implied individuality. That number of home runs would mean something very different were they to have come from Mark Loretta; if some A-list blogger were to get a mere 2 comments, they would surely be annoyed, whereas for me, that is far more than usual.

Data, especially in an electronically networked environment where our every action is translated to a computational form, is inseperable from identity and individuality and baseball, as a sport, knows this well. Yet, what is MLB stating when they claim that they must be paid fees for use of these data? Part of me wants to say that they are trying to route fan interaction with players (via data) through themselves as an institution. I also have an instinctual reaction to question MLB's insitence that it owns players' individuality. The central thing that seems to be at stake here - and it is something that we will be sure to see arise again and again - is the control of data. This is how power will be, and is, wielded. While trends we have seen seem to imply that this power has become, or is becoming decentralized, the institutions of old are certainly putting up a fight. Though in the case of baseball, I'm not sure MLB ever had control: the sport is much larger than the organization.

The collective control of data, and its relationship to individuals, is also under question with telephone companies releasing all call information to the NSA which aggregates it for broad analysis. Jeff Jarvis covers this topic thoroughly. To extend this baseball comparison, we can see our telephone records as specific statistics that lead back to us as individuals, but also can be aggregate to a much different effect. This process of aggregation is key to Web 2.0-style ideals (think folksonomy here), yet we (myself included) are uncomfortable when this aggregation is in the hands of the NSA. Naturally, this is because the NSA intends to use this aggregate data against (or if you wanted to shift the rhetorical tables: "to protect") us, does not make it public, and does not allow us to opt out. Again, then, the issue here is the control of data, the control of our identity and individuality in a networked world.