[IP] Re: At Rapleaf, your personals are public

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Date: September 1, 2007 5:49:41 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: lauren@vortex.com
Subject: Re: [IP] At Rapleaf, your personals are public


Dave,

A quote from that article is telling:

  "Clavier said Rapleaf is only working off what's already available.
  "What's interesting is that when you read about what Wink, Rapleaf
   and others have been doing, it's suddenly like, 'Oh my God, this is
   a lack of privacy.' But it's only aggregating what's out there. It
   used to take several Google searches to find the information--now
   it's a one-stop shop."

"Only aggregating"?  Hmmm.

Sooner or later, people will need to come to terms with the fact
that -- for better or worse -- aggregation, just like putting
formerly offline data online in the first place, changes data use
and abuse potentials in qualitative, not just quantitative ways.

Of course, to a significant extent, these kinds of sites are
depending upon the naivete of persons exposing their personal
information publicly in the first place.

Perhaps the most interesting question is how people would feel about
the government building these kinds of dossiers on individuals, not
just private firms.  But of course, with private firms doing the work,
any and all comers (including lawyers, disgruntled observers, assorted
wackos, and yes, even government agencies) will be able to get whatever
goodies they wish from these commercial services in the first instance.

Questions:  Are we comfortable with this?  If people are hurt
financially or even physically as a result of information on these
aggregation systems, who will shoulder the blame and costs
involved?  Will the operators of these environments use the popular
"It's not my job, man!" excuse and try the pass the buck?

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com

 - - -

> At Rapleaf, your personals are public
> By Stefanie Olsen
>
> The start-up aggregates social-networking profiles and, through
> TrustFuse, opens the possibility of selling that data to marketers.
>
> http://news.com.com/At+Rapleaf%2C+your+personals+are+public/
> 2100-1038_3-6205716.html?tag=sas.email
>
>
> -------------------------------------------


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