Quote:Data collection on the Internet is a one-sided deal for the most part: users reveal data willingly or unwillingly, and companies store the data, process it, and even share it without giving users much control over any of that.

While large Internet companies such as Google, Microsoft, or Facebook attempt to please privacy advocates and governments when it comes to data collection, storing, and management, it is fair to say that users are not very much in control when it comes to their own data.

Microsoft Bali was revealed to the public earlier today by Mary Jo Foley on ZDNet. From what we know so far, it is a Microsoft Research project that is in private beta at the time.

Invited users may join Project Bali, and anyone else may request an invite code. Whether there is a chance for regular users to get in is unknown, but I would say it is slim.
So, what is Project Bali? The homepage does not reveal much but the About page offers some information on the project.

According to the description there, it is based on a privacy concept called Inverse Privacy mentioned in a Research Paper which anyone may access here. Inverse Privacy refers to personal information that is private to an individual but out of control of that individual.