Posted on 03/10/2011 4:01:59 PM PST by LucyT
Three hours after I gave my name and e-mail address to Michael Fertik, the CEO of Reputation.com, he called me back and read my Social Security number to me.
[snip]
In the past few months, I have been told many more-interesting facts about myself than my Social Security number.
I've gathered a bit of the vast amount of data that's being collected both online and off by companies in stealth — taken from the websites I look at, the stuff I buy, my Facebook photos, my warranty cards, my customer-reward cards, the songs I listen to online, surveys I was guilted into filling out and magazines I subscribe to.
Google's Ads Preferences believes I'm . . . . . . . ."
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
There is now an enormous multibillion-dollar industry based on the collection and sale of this personal and behavioral data,
[snip]
"There's no code of conduct. There's no standard. There's nothing that safeguards privacy and establishes rules of the road."
Which gives rise to a simple statement:
ONLY IDIOTS HAVE A FACEBOOK AND/OR MYSPACE PAGE IN HIS/HER R/L NAME!!!!
Anyone who needs or wants to contact me already knows how to do so. I have no interest in figments of years gone by.
Anyone who thinks anything they put on any web site has privacy is a fool.
I have the perfect idea for a company that would make lots of money and provide everyone privacy they want. It’s called Disinformation Inc.
Basically it fills up the Internet with tons of crap about you, randomly browses the web from your PC, posts thousands of photos with your name, puts all kinds of fake random postings on different blogs under your name, so Google and the data-miners won’t know if you’re a turnip farmer or a mercenary.
It’d be like that leprechaun that tied a yellow ribbon around every tree in the forest to prevent that guy from finding the right one with the treasure.
“Anyone who needs or wants to contact me already knows how to do so. I have no interest in figments of years gone by.”
I’ve thought about joining Facebook but then my years in IT overrode my nostalgia and said NO!
More from the article:
“Google’s Ads Preferences believes I’m a guy interested in politics, Asian food, perfume, celebrity gossip, animated movies and crime but who doesn’t care about “books & literature” or “people & society.” (So not true.)
“Yahoo! has me down as a 36-to-45-year-old male who uses a Mac computer and likes hockey, rap, rock, parenting, recipes, clothes and beauty products; it also thinks I live in New York, even though I moved to Los Angeles more than six years ago.
“Alliance Data, an enormous data-marketing firm in Texas, knows that I’m a 39-year-old college-educated Jewish male who takes in at least $125,000 a year, makes most of his purchases online and spends an average of only $25 per item.
“Specifically, it knows that on Jan. 24, 2004, I spent $46 on “low-ticket gifts and merchandise” and that on Oct. 10, 2010, I spent $180 on intimate apparel. It knows about more than 100 purchases in between. Alliance also knows I owe $854,000 on a house built in 1939...”
OK — messing with data is a lot of fun, but it is a lot of work.
I keep trying to convince data collection robots I am really a cute lesbian Asian chick but for some reason that hasn’t “stuck.”
>>I’ve thought about joining Facebook but then my years in IT overrode my nostalgia and said NO!<<
That is what is interesting — people more mature into IT avoid it, whereas kids who think programming in C++ for a few months makes him/her an IT expert jump into it.
I know a website where they denigrate you if you do not use your real name as your on-screen name. Explaining Identity Theft to them is like talking to liberals: they don't want to hear it and they don't believe it will happen to them.
Interestingly, I do have a FaceBook account in my real name.
On occasion, I do Google searches on myself. I have never found my FaceBook listed there. However, there is a woman with my name in another state who has a fairly active MySpace account.
I also find, via Google, that I have donated to various honor societies and scholarship funds. I can also find where I currently live, and the towns I have lived in for the past 20 years. That kind of information concerns me far more than what may be on FaceBook. Unlike FaceBook, which knows little about me beyond my name, I have no control over the rest of the information being published on the internet.
Don’t use Gmail!
>>I have no control over the rest of the information being published on the internet.<<
*shrug* sure you do. DON’T HAVE A FACEBOOK PAGE!!
Absolutely nothing new here. This started 30+ years ago with grocery store “bonus” cards. The “bonus” wasn’t exactly as advertised......
>>Explaining Identity Theft to them is like talking to liberals: they don’t want to hear it and they don’t believe it will happen to them.<<
For the record, I am a cure lesbian Asian from the ‘hood named Laquanna Kaneisha Lee.
Should I have no patents? Those put one’s name all over the internet.
Nothing interesting about me, they are welcome to it...just don’t search for any outstanding warrents....:O)
>>Should I have no patents? Those put one’s name all over the internet.<<
Public records are public records. We can’t control them. But we should not add to the public database of information about us.
I know if someone were to mine the thousands of FR posts I have provided they could get a HINT of who I might be. But I am careful to ensure there is no overlayable data in my few RL Internet presence to link that person to FD2003.
Some have suggested that it is even better to have a different handle on different sites (not a bad idea). But, when it comes to opinions, I want to be consistent and known for what I think.
But I guard my RL information closely.
>>However, there is a woman with my name in another state who has a fairly active MySpace account.<<
Is she hot and does she put out?
;)
I was buying a bottle of wine at Target and they asked for my ID (even tho I am 37 with a beard). I showed them my DL in my wallet. They asked me to take it out. I did. Then they got ready to swipe it in their magnetic scanner. I said .. “Woe! Hold on there!!” I explained that they were not going to swipe my DL into their computer. A 16 yo bagboy told me the computer doesn’t store any information it just reads your birthdate.
to which I replied.. “Go get your manager, right now.”
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