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New Sites Make It Easier to Spy on Friends
http://online.wsj.com/ public/ article/ SB121063460767286631.html
Armed with new and established Web sites, people are uncovering surprising details about others that often don't turn up in a simple Internet search. Though none of these sites can reveal anything that isn't already available publicly, they can make it
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Spokeo, el "gran hermano" de las redes sociales
http://josekblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/spokeo-el-gran-hermano...Spokeo no es una red social, ni muho menos, pero si que es una herramienta muy interesante dentro del mundo de las redes sociales. A medio camino entre un buscador y un agregador de contenidos, Spokeo permite buscar la información de una persona a través de más de 40 servicios de redes sociales, incluyendo Blogger, DevianArt, FaceBook, Flickr, Hi5, Last.Fm, MySpace y un largo etcétera. ¿Y para qué sirve esto? Una utilidad básica puede ser la de seguir el movimiento de tus amigos dentro de las redes sociales sin tener que utilizar una infinidad de servicios a la vez. Sin embargo, parece que las empresas han encontrado una utilidad todavía más valiosa a esta herramienta, el recabar información acerca del personal que van a contratar o de las personas con las que tienen que tratar algunos asuntos. Estas utilidades le han ganado el sobrenombre de "Gran Hermano" de las redes sociales. Rastreando a través de las redes sociales, las empresas pueden descubrir inexactitudes en los CV, las competencias mejor o peor desarrolladas, o incluso hacer un perfil psicológico de las personas a contratar. Por otra parte, y tampoco menos importante, permite a alguien conocer los gustos de otra persona a la que se quiere impresionar con un detalle (por ejemplo para cerrar un negocio o entablar una alianza). Cada día más, las redes sociales se entremezclan con el mundo empresarial, pasando de ser una mera distracción a una importante herramienta de comunicación y gestión de la información. (Vía twitter de Guy Kawasaki) P.D: Curioseando algo más, veo que Guy Kawasaki es consejero de Spokeo
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U Made An Illegal U-Turn
http://justgetthere.us/blog/archives/U-Made-An-Illegal-U-Tur...By Christina L. Madden The entrenchment of social surveillance presents a challenge for democratic integrity and personal privacy. Policy Innovations | By 2014, New Songdo in South Korea is slated to be the world's largest "ubiquitous city," with tracking devices installed virtually everywhere and all major information systems—residential, medical, commercial, governmental—linked to one another to share data. Supporters hope the $25 billion project will spur foreign investment in the country by showcasing advanced technologies such as smart-card readers, which can alert parents when their children arrive at school, among other uses. South Korea tested its first ubiquitous city, or U-city, last year and has a smaller model planned for completion in 2009. The surveillance industry is booming, and you don't have to live in a U-city to feel like your every move is being traced. Daily transactions such as email exchanges and credit card payments leave a data trail which can be used for consumer research and government investigations, and some website companies, such as Zaba Inc. and Spokeo Inc., allow individuals to "spy" on one another's personal details. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags can be implanted in humans to track the movements of workers. They've also been added to passports to store personal information. Some billboards are now equipped with tiny surveillance cameras and facial recognition software to determine the gender and age of passersby, as well as whether and for how long they look at the advertisements. With recent developments in information technology, surveillance devices can now be produced in smaller sizes—sometimes microscopic—and systems can be networked in new ways. In some cases this results in more convenience and better security. But the ability to collect, store, analyze, and transfer data in increasingly pervasive and decreasingly detectable manners raises privacy concerns. Even when consumers wittingly allow their personal data to be collected, they may not be aware of the full implications. According to David Lyon, Director of the Surveillance Project at Queens University, social sorting, or the classification of individuals based on socioeconomic data, is a common goal of surveillance. The practice often results in differential treatment for people in the various categories. Retailers use aggregated data to target advertisements to certain income brackets, while insurers may charge a higher premium for individuals whose supermarket loyalty cards show they've been buying junk food or cigarettes. Data aggregator ChoicePoint came under fire in 2005 after it inadvertently sold the personal data of roughly 140,000 Americans to identity thieves. Function creep, or the use of data and devices for purposes other than their original intent, can also put physical security at risk. In 2006, Yahoo! Inc. released data about Wang Xiaoning to the Chinese government, resulting in Wang's arrest and 10-year imprisonment for advocating democratic reform and a multiparty system in China. Last year, U.S. hedge funds invested more than $150 million in China's surveillance companies. The city of Shenzhen alone will have as many as 2 million security cameras installed over the next three years. Combined with Internet regulation, facial recognition software, and RFID-enabled national identification cards, the cameras are part of China's own experiment in "ubiquitous" surveillance. The country's so-called "Golden Shield" will allow police to easily identify, locate, and detain citizens who promote the human rights and religious freedoms deemed illegal by the Chinese Communist Party. While some people argue that democratic governance provides protection against surveillance abuse, surveillance itself can in fact threaten democracy. According to Privacy International's 2007 report, the United States and the United Kingdom rank alongside China as some of the most "endemic" surveillance societies. The United Kingdom has the most surveillance cameras per capita in the world, with one camera for every fourteen people. Junior officials, now permitted to initiate surveillance operations in the name of national security, have used their authority to prosecute petty crimes like littering. The right to privacy is fundamental to the democratic principles of debate and dissent. And protection of minorities, another integral component of a healthy democracy, can also be eroded through surveillance measures when social sorting morphs into racial profiling. During World War II, Japanese Americans were targeted for internment using census data. Post-9/11 surveillance measures in the United States, such as illegal wiretapping and no-fly lists, are often aimed at Arab and Muslim Americans. Such practices, and the secrecy with which they occur, can undermine citizen trust in government. Ben Franklin is credited with the phrase, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither." But the two aren't necessary mutually exclusive, and individuals don't always have a choice in the matter. Suzanne Spaulding, former legal counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency, suggests that civil liberties and national security are rather mutually reinforcing and argues for more public debate on the use of surveillance capabilities. The future of networked surveillance technology, and ubiquitous computing in particular, is considered a social experiment of sorts, the full effects of which won't be discernible for some time. It's been suggested that ethical guidelines for the use of such technologies be developed along the lines of social research principles: full disclosure of how data is collected and used; avoidance of financial, physical, and psychic harm; and, when possible, the ability for users to opt in or out.
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newsletter links 2.5
http://www.hidan.ca/?p=30It’s that time again kids! I wish I fun friends like this. http://www.kontraband.com/show.....ndex-top20 Breakdancing. Started in Russia in the 30’s. Didn’t you know? Keep watching, it’s actually pretty wicked. http://www.kontraband.com/show.....ndex-top20 HAHA! This girl is like me! (EVERY PHOTO) haha. http://www.kontraband.com/show.....=1#gallery Thou Shalt Sort Thy Plastics How bad is it to mix your soda bottles with your yogurt cups? So. Wait, basically, most of our “recyclables” get landfilled or incinerated anyways? http://www.slate.com/id/2190734/ This is uplifting but I don’t know why. Old blind dood bowls a perfect game. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn.....id=3389079 Scientology Video. Hilarious! http://www.funnyordie.com/vide.....0?=sortall Reminds me of someone telling me Belinda Stronarch was hot… Except, this chick is actually hot! http://www.nationalpost.com/ne.....?id=501607 I’m going to this party! http://cbs3.com/topstories/Cud.....09239.html If Nintendo made Halo 3. GG. http://kotaku.com/5008566/if-nintendo-made-halo-3 The next google? http://www.powerset.com/ Self-explanatory. Crack[ed] rocks! http://www.cracked.com/article.....stics.html Turn your vacuum cleaner into a bazooka. http://www.environmentalgraffi.....zooka/1164 What can I find out about you guys… http://online.wsj.com/public/a.....l?mod=blog Social Networking sites of the elite http://www.forbes.com/2008/05/.....peed=15000 Ode to Solitaire! I love Slate! http://www.slate.com/id/2191295/ They’re also doing a special on procrastination. Here’s one of the articles… taking an anthropological tact. http://www.slate.com/id/2191310/ Jeez these guys can write about anything and make me interested! http://www.slate.com/id/2190658/pagenum/2/ Whale fins inspire better blade design! I thought this was cool. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/.....-stgn.html Ants attack! http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....941545.ece I’m sure you got the 6 gas saving tips in the mail. But are they real? http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/1....._save_gas/ I hate you child. JK. http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1815260 My next business card better look like one of these… http://reencoded.com/2008/05/2.....100s-more/ I LOVE the rickroll. http://www.omglists.com/articl.....olls-ever/ Should I ever get on the internet dating bandwagon? http://gawker.com/392686/craig.....-are-mines Gay superheroes… http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1817698 Wicked mix: Pogo - Alice. http://rcrdlbl.com/2008/05/25/video_pogo_alice
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http://archivistica.blogspot.com/2008/05/espiar-por-internet...
Espiar por internet. Algunas webs ofrecen nuestra información personal que localizan en la red a interesados y cotillas. Ya es habitual buscar a los conocidos en Google, e incluso ya hay catalogada una enfermedad mental que consiste en buscarse continuamente en la red... Pero además existen servicios especializados en ello. Wall Street Journal enumeraba algunos de los negocios que se dedican a esto: Zabasearch permite saber los datos personales, Spock rastrea las redes sociales, Zillow estima el valor de una casa... menos mal que de momento esto ocurre en Estados Unidos..
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Privacy, spam, and anti-social networking
http://www.messagingnews.com/onmessage/2008/05/26/privacy-sp...New Sites Make It Easier To Spy on Your Friends: The Wall Street Journal has a piece on services and social network tools that can be used and abused to discover and extract information about individuals that would often be difficult to obtain otherwise. The Dark Side of Social Networking: Questions for Brant Walker: The Voice of San Diego has an interview with Brant Walker, the creator of bumfinder, fakeyourspace.com, and rottenneighbor.com all of which could be considered anti-social networking services to some degree. The interview is interesting as it provides another perspective for looking at the prospects and the dangers of social networking technology. Steering Between Unsocial Networks and Social Spam: A New York Times Blog post discusses some of the privacy considerations surrounding interoperability between social network services data and messaging systems.
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No One Cares What You Have For Lunch
http://real-brilliant.blogspot.com/2008/05/no-one-cares-what...Saw a book with this title on Amazon today and chuckled. I feel like this blog has been just that dull of late. It's been a miracle just getting something up on this blog every single day in May. (Don't travel when you want to improve traffic to a blog!) So today we go back to the basics. This blog is my writing blog. I'm not here to help anyone improve their writing, or even to improve my writing, I'm just talking about my writing journey. I am an aspiring novelist, have written and published several non-fiction gift books and one children's picture book and I'm moving onto YA this year. I also write essays and non-fiction and copyedit a lot of pages on a weekly basis. Currently I'm just about to begin my massive revision of the YA novel I've been working on for the past year. I plan to have 100 pages ready by the first of August (or sooner) to send out to a second editor for her opinion and I plan to sell this book in time to grab the summer/fall reading lists for 2010. This means I need to find an agent this fall and sell sometime in early 2009. Or somewhere thereabouts. Plans of mice and men and all that . . . News roundup today: CJR reports on the changing face of journalism; not so much about magazines anymore. Print news is growing, not decreasing, in emerging markets, according to the NYT. Professional blogger/podcaster Amanda Congdon is back on her own terms. And a bunch of information sites to get the scoop on everyone you know (or hate). Privacy? What's that? And last, not definitely not least, Penelope Trunk talks about productivity testing, with some very interesting results. Have a great productive Tuesday! Currently listening to: ASAJ 2008 mp3 recordings Currently reading: Pretties (Scott Westerfeld)www.real-brilliant.blogspot.com/atom.xml
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New Sites Make It Easier
http://outhouserag.typepad.com/outhouserag/2008/05/new-sites...Zaba Inc.'s ZabaSearch.com turns up public records such as criminal history and birthdates. Spock Networks Inc.'s Spock.com and Wink Technologies Inc.'s Wink.com are "people-search engines" that specialize in digging up personal pages, such as social-networking profiles, buried deep in the Web. Spokeo.com is a search site operated by Spokeo Inc., a startup that lets users see what their friends are doing on other Web sites. Zillow Inc.'s Zillow.com estimates the value of people's homes, while the Huffington Post's Fundrace feature tracks their campaign donations. Jigsaw Data Corp.'s Jigsaw.com, meanwhile, lets people share details with each other from business cards they've collected -- a sort of gray market for Rolodex data. Article viaIf you like this post then please consider subscribing to my full feed RSS.
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Other Articles of Interest / Week of 5.19.08
http://melesmusings.agencytrends.com/2008/05/19/other-articl...Other Articles of Interest / Week of 5.19.08 May 19th, 2008 by Joe Mele Issues of Interest Internet Use Still Heaviest Among Young emarketer.com Coming Soon: A Web-Wide Social Network? adage.com Hispanic-Americans Are Heaviest Media Users emarketer.com Digital Marketing News Study: Untargeted Ads Turn Off Social Net Users brandweek.com Social Networking Ad Spending Update emarketer.com Why Tracking Marketing Is Now So Tough adage.com Digital Commerce News Shoppers go online to research home goods, but less than a third buy there internetretailer.com Digital News and Trends Media Execs Warm to Digital Content emarketer.com New Sites Make It Easier To Spy on Your Friends online.wsj.com Retail and Products Consumers Love Using Cell Phone; It’s The Buying Part That Hurts publications.mediapost.com Reebok launches updated global e-commerce site internetretailer.com Office Depot, Google Launch Online Business Tools brandweek.com Blockbuster makes play for video gamers dallasnews.com Posted in Digital Commerce News, Digital Marketing News, Digital Trends, General, Issues of Interest, Retail and Product News
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Wall Street Journal + Daily Herald
http://blog.spokeo.com/?p=211We got onto Wall Street Journal and Daily Herald earlier this week. Our traffic has surged and all our machines are under a lot of strain. For the past two days, we have processed more than a million searches, and we have turned away tens of thousands of users from trying out Spokeo. We are trying very hard to keep our servers alive, so please stay with us and continue your support.
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