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Selling Other People's Identities
joeflies writes "The San Francisco Chronicle has an extensive article on the controversial site Jigsaw, which makes it easy to sell other people's identity information. Jigsaw encourages people to collect business cards and email signature blocks, which is compiled together into a searchable database. Participants earn points towards their own searches or earn money.
Is this exactly what Scott McNealy meant when he said electronic privacy is dead?"
Given how stupid your average human is, though, there isn't much hope for the former.
The heavens do not fall for such a trifle.
As posters already pointed out, there are no such things as private business cards. Besides, your local library probably has access to ReferenceUSA, which is a compendium of Personal and Business information extraordinaire. Opinion: overreaction.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Actually, now that I've read TFA (gauche, I know), the CEO is quoted as saying "Jigsaw doesn't touch non-business information with a 10-foot pole", lists examples of the type of information not accepted, and relates a circumstance in which inappropriate information was removed. So, yes.
This sig is false.
"Is this exactly what Scott McNealy meant when he said electronic privacy is dead?"
Yes. This is exactly what he meant.
After leaving his job as CEO of Sun, McNealy went on to found Jigsaw.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Our data protection laws in the UK aren't nearly as powerful as you (and most people) think, unfortunately, and while I think our current Information Commissioner is a pretty good guy, he can only protect our privacy with the powers he's given in law.
For example, take a look at the kind of data Transport for London have (or at least used to have) in their data protection entry, and tell me it's really all needed to meet the business requirements of that organisation.
Moreover, the number of exemptions is pretty staggering. Why are credit reference agencies permitted to keep vast amounts of personal data about me without my consent? (Don't tell me it's those signs at the shop counters; I read the small print, and I've read my credit report, and the two are not related in any meaningful way.) The last time I dealt with a credit reference agency (to clean up someone else's mistake that was black-marking my record incorrectly) I discovered that there were, quite literally, more inaccurate entries in my record than accurate ones. After waiting on hold for more than half an hour to speak to someone about them, I was asked after about five minutes "whether it really mattered", since "it's after 6pm and I'm supposed to be going home now". Seriously, that's what they told me, after a half-hour on hold, when the records they had on me that could directly affect my ability to get a mortgage or something were written in someone's dreamland.
Other legal powers aren't as great as you might expect, either. For one thing, while you can normally get bad information corrected, if you just don't want someone to store your personal information any more, you can't make them stop, as long as they're registered for that purpose. Take Amazon, for example. I bought from them using a credit card for the first time not so long ago. After going through the usual signing-up process and completing my order, I discovered that they are now keeping my credit card number on-file, and will use it any time someone makes an order from them using my login and password (which they control), without any further attempt to confirm my identity or intent to make that transaction. Can I make them drop that number from their database and opt to re-enter it every time I make a purchase instead? Take a guess. And this in a world where thousands of people's credit card numbers or other personal details have been "misplaced" by large businesses in the past year alone, and in a country where the law does not currently require a company making such mistakes to disclose them publicly or to pay any particularly heavy fines for doing so.
So while I agree we have better data protection laws than many, I think we have a long way to go before our data is protected as well as it should be.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
in germany it is illegal to pass someones name,adress,phonenumber,etc on without his approval...
thats why there are always guys on the street asking people if they want to win this and that - they only have to answer the quiz question (like 2+2=4 or 60000000000000?) where the damn answer is somewhere on the pamphlet and if you don't know, then they tell you the answer BECAUSE they only want you to fill out the form (name, adress, phone number) and SIGN that you agree to the conditions of the tombola
the conditions are on the back side of the form, written in light gray in font size 0.1 and CLEARLY contain the condition that they are allowed to sell your personal data....
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Even though the company description of Jigsaw sounds nice and rewarding, other people have dramatically different opinions about what Jigsaw is doing.
g saw-data-following-privacy-standards/
Read More: http://techaddress.wordpress.com/2006/09/08/is-ji