In the case of your personal data it means verifying, organizing, categorizing, storing, updating, archiving and securing it, along with negotiating its release, its deployment and its use with and by interested parties. That looks a lot like work. In fact, it looks like heavy lifting and no fun at all.

Well, people are working on technologies and services that aim to make personal data management easy and effective. At Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, for example, there is . The goal is to develop a set of tools for Vendor Relationship Management (VRM), which has been described as the reciprocal of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as practiced by businesses.

I recently talked to Joe Andrieu, CEO of start-up SwitchBook, which plans to help you manage your Internet searching such that your activities are organized and what you're looking for is kept private -- what the company calls . Andrieu is passionate about the need for VRM and says SwitchBook will implement the policies and methodologies for VRM, all of which is great.

But the problem I foresee is that without real privacy laws, with user interest in managing one's own data currently almost non-existent, and with nothing even remotely approaching a public dialog on how our data is routinely used and abused, how can VRM work? The fact is our society needs VRM and needs it now. So, how can we, the IT industry, the only people who "get it", help the rest of the world to get it?