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[ontolog-forum] Why is metadata important?

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Donald C. Lindsay" <don.lindsay@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 12:02:39 -0700
Message-id: <002a01ce8c8e$32ca3380$985e9a80$@gmail.com>

As a reminder of why metadata is important I give you this quote by a recent whitepaper I found at:

http://www.risklibrary.net/download/guide-managing-metadata-today-s-public-sector-organisations-17347

 

Quoted material follows:

“There are a number of problems that can arise if metadata is not managed properly. Examples

include:

• British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office prepared a memo to support the notion that UN weapons

inspections were not working in Iraq and that military action was justified. Richard M. Smith, a

privacy and security expert in the US, downloaded the Word document and extracted the metadata.

The metadata revealed the press office was deeply involved in the Iraq memo’s preparation and

copied portions of a US graduate student’s work.

• The Department of Defense Multi-National Task Force – Iraq Unit published a report in PDF format

about its investigation of a shooting incident. The authors supposedly redacted sensitive content,

but an Italian blogger was able to recover the redacted content using tools available in Microsoft

Windows 1 .

• The final draft of a United Nations report on the murder of the former Prime Minister of Lebanon

omitted critical information about Syria’s involvement in the murder. Prior to submitting the report,

the author failed to delete the edits 2 .

• BHP, a multinational mining firm, developed a copper mine in Papua New Guinea that polluted a

native fishing area, the Ok Tedi River. A native group brought suit against BHP, shortly after which

the government of Papua New Guinea passed a law that made it a criminal act to pursue litigation

against BHP for polluting the river. However, the attorneys for the native group found a draft of

the legislation in a word processing document that included BHP’s footer. BHP was subsequently

found guilty of contempt, resulting in a significant fall in their share price. Within two weeks of the

contempt finding, BHP resolved the legal action 3 .

• A few years ago Google inadvertently showed a presentation during its annual Analyst Day that

revealed notes about its projected advertising revenue for the year. The company included its

mistaken revelation in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing 4 .

• Merck, the world’s second-largest pharmaceutical company, submitted an article to The New

England Journal of Medicine about its anti-arthritis drug Vioxx (which has since been withdrawn

from the market after Merck was hit with roughly 7,000 lawsuits). The editors of the Journal revealed

publicly that metadata showing a link to an increased heart-attack risk with Vioxx had been deleted

from the article 5 .

• A contributor to the Journal of Accountancy wrote a client an angrily toned memo. After considering

his words a bit more carefully, he deleted the original draft and used a more appropriate tone, after

which he sent the memo. However, the original version of the memo was included along with the

latter 6 .

 

1. http://tinyurl.com/lq89ke

2. http://tinyurl.com/kvo23z

3. http://tinyurl.com/nqwt9b

4. http://tinyurl.com/dn85ek

5. http://tinyurl.com/mkmpsd

6. http://tinyurl.com/ksmcyf

 

©2013 Workshare. All rights reserved.

Workshare and DeltaView are registered trademarks of Workshare. Workshare Document Content Technology, Workshare Protect, Workshare Compare Service, Workshare Professional and the Workshare logo are trademarks of Workshare. All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.”

 

End Quoted Material

 

Ultimately, Linked Data, the DAML initiative, KI’s company, the W3C, the debate over microdata and related issues are a high stakes game with a lot of players and a lot of issues. That the W3C, OpenLink, and other organizations are doing their damndest to Get It Right isn’t some intellectual exercise or academic chest-beating, despite the utterly serious and economically pertinent views of anxious corporate sponsors and philosophical sojourners. The answers provided matter and have consequences.

 

Don


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