...because it's an email harvester.
I find this startup rather disturbing...
51–60 of 74 posts
Re: I find this startup rather disturbing...
#52Yeah I agree, the fact that an HR person can easily type in your e-mail and get all your personal details is a bit much. But, with that said, you honestly should be using a different e-mail address on your job applications than your personal e-mail.
Re: I find this startup rather disturbing...
#53The argument against this startup is the same argument that was made when Facebook introduced the news feed; namely, that there is a difference in terms of the privacy of merely having publicly available data and aggregating that very data. The argument has to be, the very aggregation of data is an invasion of privacy; the added simplicity is an aide to stalking and illegal/immoral in itself. This is sort of the 'see…
I would say that aggregating publicly available data and making it searchable can be intrusive, even in seemingly harmless cases like Google Street View.
A couple of remarks on your second paragraph. I often read the view (Slashdot) that if you are in public, or publicly visible, you have no expectation of privacy. This is false in many legislations.
I cannot comment on U.S. law, but in Germany (and I presume in many other European countries), you need a person's consent before publishing their picture.
Exceptions:
a) You are in a public place and you are clearly not the center of the picture.
b) You participated in a public event (where it is likely that pictures are taken).
c) You are a public figure.
Note that even in the case of a public figure you would not be allowed to publish pictures of them engaging in sex.
I would be interested in how other countries handle this.
Re: I find this startup rather disturbing...
#54The argument against this startup is the same argument that was made when Facebook introduced the news feed; namely, that there is a difference in terms of the privacy of merely having publicly available data and aggregating that very data. The argument has to be, the very aggregation of data is an invasion of privacy; the added simplicity is an aide to stalking and illegal/immoral in itself. This is sort of the 'see…
Having an argument about it is one thing, but there will be other startups that help people defend against this kind of aggregation and they are no less justified. For example, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to poison the databases of aggregators with inconsistent garbage.
The data they sell is crap anyway and there will be laws against it if only on the basis of preventing the distribution of false information about people. It's too much work to keep this data clean and that's why they are going to get crushed for spreading lies about people.
Re: I find this startup rather disturbing...
#55No more disturbing than Google really. Today's reality is that if you put information on the internet that can be tied to your name, email, address, phone number, etc, then that information can be found and used for or against you. Improvements in search will make finding this information easier and easier.
and crucially, in a way that is currently of little but growing significance, such information will never go away or shrink .
In a way it can shrink. It can shrink by getting diluted or poisoned with crap data.
Re: I find this startup rather disturbing...
#56Whatever you think about this new direction for spokeo one thing is for sure, its working.
Re: I find this startup rather disturbing...
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Send a message to all your friends and Facebook will do it for you.
That made me laugh, but I don't think Facebook ever deletes anything. Ever. They just "disable" stuff.
No-one ever deletes things. When you "delete" your account, for example, they aren't going to invalidate their last set of backups. They aren't also going to anonymize all the comments/messages you sent that now reside in other people's profiles. Any information you give to any social networking site belongs only partially to you, partially to them, and partially to the members of your network with whom you have interacted.
Re: I find this startup rather disturbing...
#58Spokeo is pretty creepy. They index all of Pandora's public channels so you can see what kind of music your friends have been listening to.
Re: I find this startup rather disturbing...
#59Rather undewhelming. I'm every hit for the first 5 pages of googling my name, and these guys have almost nothing on me.
Muahahahahaha
Re: I find this startup rather disturbing...
#60The argument against this startup is the same argument that was made when Facebook introduced the news feed; namely, that there is a difference in terms of the privacy of merely having publicly available data and aggregating that very data. The argument has to be, the very aggregation of data is an invasion of privacy; the added simplicity is an aide to stalking and illegal/immoral in itself. This is sort of the 'see…
I would say that aggregating publicly available data and making it searchable can be intrusive, even in seemingly harmless cases like Google Street View. A couple of remarks on your second paragraph. I often read the view (Slashdot) that if you are in public, or publicly visible, you have no expectation of privacy. This is false in many legislations. I cannot comment on U.S. law, but in Germany (and I presume in many…
b.2) Or there are more than six or seven guys on the picture.