What better way to celebrate Data Privacy Day 2011 then by sharing it with some of the brightest minds in online privacy and computer security? Today, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik moderated a panel called Rethinking Personal Data: New Value through End-user Control, Transparency and Trust.The panel included such notable names as Jon Leibowitz, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and Michele Luzi, Partner in the global business and strategy consulting firm Bain & Company.

During the session, the panel discussed the issue of personal data from a number of angles, bringing economic, legal, and security considerations into the debate. Overall, it was a successful session that confirmed the consensus decision that online privacy and personal data protection are two of the most important issues facing the Internet, and that companies and legislative bodies will be looking to solve privacy problems in 2011.

Following the panel, Michael Fertik took a few moments to recap the discussion with two of the panelists: Sandy Pentland, director of MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory and the MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, and John Clippinger, Co-Director of the law lab at Harvard University. Check out video from the chat below.

You never know who you’re going to run into in Davos. While at the World Economic Forum, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik met up with Silicon Valley celebrity and noted tech evangelist Robert Scoble. Scoble, always ready to share with his legions of followers, recorded a short interview with Michael about online privacy, Reputation.com’s new Facebook application uProtect.it, and Michael’s impressions of the World Economic Forum.

You can listen to the segment using the CinchCast media player below. For up-to-the-minute news from Davos, follow Michael Fertik and Robert Scoble on Twitter.

Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik is currently in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. During his time in Davos, Michael has the opportunity to speak with many business leaders and politicians about the important subject of Internet privacy and online reputation.

In a special column for Reuters, Michael Fertik shares some of his insights the evolution of online security and privacy and what Davos attendees are doing to help address the growing cybersecurity threats in the world.

Check out an excerpt of Michael’s column below:

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has named cybersecurity one of the top five risks in the world. In its Global Risks 2011 report, the WEF’s Risk Response Network nominated cybersecurity alongside planetary risks posed by demography, resource scarcity, trepidation about globalization, and, of course, WMDs. This is heady stuff. Cybersecurity has officially gone prime time. This week in Davos, I’ll be moderating and contributing to panel sessions on this topic.

The timing could not be more ripe. Right now we are witnessing the convergence of multiple seismic risks to data integrity. Social networks capture and mine ever larger amounts of data about humans and companies, opting users into increasingly invasive data collection with little or no notice. Apps operating on social networks and smartphones continually pull data streams about friends, families, personal connections, contacts, geo-location, behavior, preferences, tastes, and health habits — even when these data streams are unrelated to the stated purpose of the applications.

We’ve seen search sites mine public data, semi-public data, purchased information that was supposedly private, and even scraped or stolen data, and aggregate them together for sale and resale on the open web, claiming cover of current law. To date, the Internet economy has been nearly perfectly stacked against individuals’ control over their data. The proliferation of deep digital information about every individual on earth, along with the correlated explosion of its easy and unwitting accessibility by third parties, poses a “personal WikiLeaks” threat to each of us.

Check out Reuters for Michael’s full column. For more information from Davos, check out these three articles and follow along with Michael Fertik on Twitter.

Yesterday, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik shared a “Beginner’s Guide to Davos,” for first-time World Economic Forum attendees. In his latest dispatch for the Harvard Business Review, Fertik shares insights from his first day at the Forum, and how thousands of entrepreneurs, politicians, and other civic leaders are working together to solve global problems.

Check out Michael Fertik’s full day one dispatch below:

The Congress Center is buzzing. The crowd is hyper-international, and business is on everyone’s lips. You probably overhear the word “China” or “Obama” every third minute. It’s been snowing, but there’s no sense of that inside the building, which has been set up like a small, self-contained city.

This morning I participated in a working session between the WEF’s Technology Pioneers and Social Entrepreneurs. We had an active and impassioned discussion on global topics including health, water, sustainability, entrepreneurship, and employment. The people here are working on fascinating projects. One fellow has funded a project that has collectivized waste pickers in the developing world and raised their daily income from 65 cents to seven dollars. By doing so, he has also made health insurance affordable and possible for the same community. Another, based in South Africa, has paired international designers with local craftsmen to increase the value of the hand-made goods for export, raising their incomes from 40% to 100%. A third is focused on getting more high school students to go to college in the United States, driven by the fact that the top contributor to urban growth is local college attainment levels.

I’m tweeting photos via my Twitter account if you want to follow live.

Michael Fertik will continue covering Davos for the Harvard Business Review and other news outlets during the week. Check back here often for the latest updates.

As we shared yesterday, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik is in Davos, Switzerland this week for the World Economic Forum. For those unfamiliar with the World Economic Forum, the WEF “is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.”

In other words, it’s a really big deal. As Michael Fertik describes it in a recent dispatch, Davos “becomes the center of the universe” for nearly a week during the World Economic Forum, and for good reason. It is exceptionally rare to have so many world leaders meet in one place to discuss the most important issues facing our collective society, which is why it’s an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed.

To help newcomers to Davos, Fertik recently authored a Beginner’s Guide to Davos for the Harvard Business Review. Check out the article in full below.

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Davos, Switzerland, becomes the temporary capital of the planet this week as business and policy leaders converge to tackle pressing questions. Like only a handful of other small towns, Davos becomes the center of the universe for a brief span each year. Other temporary capitals include my own cherished Louisville, which commands the world’s attention for the full two minutes of the annual Kentucky Derby, though Davos does become the hub of the world for nearly a week.

Along with others from HBR, I’ll be sending dispatches all week. Please follow along and let me know what you’re interested in. I got in late last night, barely slept due to jet lag, and then woke up this morning for some extremely good muesli. Also some bread and cheese with holes in it; here they don’t call it Swiss cheese.

I didn’t know much about Davos and the World Economic Forumbefore I got involved with the WEF; here’s some basics for those of you who are new to the event:

The World Economic Forum functions more like an ecosystem or a city than a monolithic organization. To be “at Davos” doesn’t mean you’ll be in the same place as Bill Clinton or Bono, though that would be cool. The WEF is comprised of many groups, among them policy groups, civil society groups, technology pioneers, and many more. Meetings tend to align around these organizations or along horizontal themes, which offer some of the best opportunities for substantive cross-pollination. The WEF is remarkably good at making substantive matches among parties with similar interests in industry or thematic sessions, but the shortage of time, naturally shared professional focus, and the social bonds of prior events often lead people to have their own WEF experiences that can be rather different from others’.

Most of the really good stuff happens outside the Congress Centre. The official sessions of the WEF are well-publicized. But much of the most fascinating substance occurs either after hours or in private sessions. Some of the best meetings happen at the many hotels in town and include both “official” WEF participants and thought leaders who are invited to contribute but who aren’t themselves official attendees; I’m guessing that less than half of the people visiting Davos this week will have WEF badges. The Belvedere Hotel — probably the ritziest option on the strip — is known as a kind of “mini-Davos” itself, with many key meetings and casual get-togethers. Indeed, I’m writing this dispatch from the coffee bar at one of the many mini-lounges inside the hotel, each of which is hosted by a company or a country. The veterans say the best conversations happen at the parties and bars from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m.

It is cold here. Stay-inside, yes-it’s-crisp-and-refreshing-Alpine-air-but-did-you-hear-me-say-it’s-cold, eat-your-muesli, and wear-heavy-undergarments cold. The Swiss don’t seem to know that. The local kids in the town traipse to school in the morning with sneakers and light sweaters, and there are hale-looking people running by you for exercise in snow-traction shoes and windbreakers. The Scandinavians and the surprisingly large contingent of Mongolians also seem not to notice the temperature.

I hope that gives you some early flavor for what’s going on. Today I’m heading to some opening sessions for the Technology Pioneers. Looking forward to meeting some very smart entrepreneurs!

For up-to-the-minute dispatches from Davos, follow Michael Fertik on Twitter.