Future of open data not so bright, says researcher - FierceGovernmentIT

"With a push for governments worldwide to open more data publicly there have been plenty of open data advocates touting the power and potential of open data. But Sascha Meinrath, vice president of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, says after a brief uptick in open government data, retraction is on its way. 'I think what we're living through is a shift,' said Meinrath during a Dec. 17 event hosted by the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. 'For a moment in time people thought open data was going to solve problems and people in power didn't realize open data could prove a political problem. And now what we're seeing is a re-enclosure,' he said.  Meinrath said he's seeing an uptick in the release of unusable data--in the form of scanned pdfs or data that can only be read using proprietary software--and a deluge of data with very little value. He said this could come in the form of a 90,000 data set release with only miniscule portions of some data sets containing anything insightful ..."