http://nymag.com/news/features/27341/
Excellent article on generational attitudes to social networking and the concept that once information is in the wild on the internet it will always be findable through Google.
Published in NY Mag. Author is Emily Nussbaum.
Here is the example of misuse of personal data from a Mashup.
Owad looked up the Amazon wishlists of everybody whos first name was Mark. Finding 124,887 public wishlists Owad then proceeded to identify a few books he found subversive and mapped the addresses of the individuals concerned.
If you imagine what next steps would happen with this project is becomes a little frightening how information that may have been thought private or obscure can easily be used to give a clear picture of you. Imagine if knowing your name and reading preferences Owad next extracts your address and telephone number from the public telephone directory; next he gets the property values in your street or even the last sale price of your house; next census data detailing general details about people in your area; next, do you have a myspace profile, or a blogger account that could be tied back to this growing profile.
I’ve got to say, none of this seems particularly difficult and its a real issue.
From an ebusiness perspective the requirement to keep someones private information private will need some real thought as these technologies move forward.
Refs:
Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists viewable at
http://www.applefritter.com/bannedbooks
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