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The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age

Professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger’s new book, ‘Delete – The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age’ raises some interesting concerns…namely – do we really need to remember all that? Do you need to remember the breakfast you had last week, or the week before that, or every week since you began eating breakfast?

Professor Mayer-Schönberger believes there is a range of social concerns connected to the fact that our technology is remembering every little detail, all the time. Metanomics host Robert Bloomfield interviewed Professor Mayer-Schönberger on November 11, 2009 at 12pm PST and discussed the value of forgetting. The conversation centered around privacy, contextualization and other issues surrounding our increasingly digital lives.

Guest Biographies

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Director of the Information + Innovation Policy Research Centre. His research focuses on the role of information in a networked economy. Before coming to the LKYSPP he spent ten years on the faculty of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Professor Mayer-Schönberger has published eight books, including recently “Delete – the Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age” (Princeton U Press 2009) and “Governance and Information Technology” (MIT Press 2007) and over a hundred articles (including in Science) and book chapters. A native Austrian, Professor Mayer-Schönberger founded Ikarus Software in 1986, a company focusing on data security, and developed Virus Utilities, which became the best-selling Austrian software product. He was voted Top-5 Software Entrepreneur in Austria in 1991 and Person-of-the-Year for the State of Salzburg in 2000.

He chairs the Rueschlikon Conference on Information Policy, is the cofounder of the SubTech conference series, and served on the ABA/AALS National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists. He holds a number of law degrees, including one from Harvard and an MS(Econ) from the London School of Economics.