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Selling Other People's Identities

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the information-trade dept.

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?"

3 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Private Business Cards by telchine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can business cards be classed as private? Surely the idea of giving them out is so they get spread far and wide?

  2. Well, it's a double-edged sword by mendaliv · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Fowler, the CEO of Jigsaw, is quoted as making an interesting comparison in the article. He likens Jigsaw to Wikipedia in so much as Jigsaw is a user-supported advertisment database, like Wikipedia is a user-supported encyclopedia.

    What he fails to realize is just how far this user-supportedness can go. Just like with Wikipedia, I imagine that Jigsaw will be hounded by vandals and the like, dumping loads and loads of false information into Jigsaw's database.

    Moreover, since Jigsaw is going against basic principles of privacy, I can imagine that we're going to see a lot more problems than with Wikipedia from "vigilante vandals".

  3. Probably would be illegal in the UK by 26199 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Quite a few times I've thought, wouldn't it be nice if America had the same data privacy laws... this is a good example of why they're needed.

    In the UK a database of personally-identifiable information automatically needs permission from every single individual concerned, unless it's exempt for some reason. Even if it is exempt the data can only be kept for the purpose it was collected for, and not shared. Once it's no longer needed it has to be destroyed.

    It's a good example of putting individual rights before business interests. Not something the USA excels at...