cebook has been battling users, prominent people in the high-tech field, and privacy advocates over the question of privacy for years now, and the problem appears to have intensified.

In November 2008, Evan Prodromou -- founder of identi.ca and CEO and lead developer of StatusNet -- published a blog post on autonomo.us in which he argued that we need a distributed model for social networking sites.

The Free Technology Academy consists of an advanced virtual campus with course modules that can be followed entirely on-line.

The learning materials are Open Educational Resources that can be studied freely, but learners enrolled in the FTA will be guided by professional teaching staff from the participating universities. The full master programme can be concluded at one of the three universities.