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The Hidden Secrets of Online Quizzes
LegionKK points out a story on PC World, sending along this excerpt: "Ultimately, deciding whether you should take an online quiz comes down to a question of trust: Are you comfortable putting your information — personal or financial — into the owner's hands? Remember, even if you don't directly input data, it can be passed along. Such is the case with Facebook, where just opening an application automatically grants its developer access to your entire profile. And don't assume that the developer isn't going to use the information within. [...] The ads can follow you long after you click away, too. Just look at RealAge, a detailed quiz that assigns you a 'biological age' based on your family history and health habits. The site, a recent investigation revealed, takes your most sensitive answers — those about sexual difficulties, say, or signs of depression — and sells them to drug companies looking to market medications."
It's not hard. If you give information, ANY INFORMATION, to anyone for anything you have to check *what* they are going to do with it. This means reading their T&C's, following up all that brings up etc. Or, you can just NOT give out personal information that you don't want spread around.
In the one instance, this means that when you sign up for a website with username, email or password requested, you should *always* check what's going to happen to that information (e.g. using your email for marketing). On the other hand, when you are logged into Facebook and scary warnings pop up about sharing your information... you should think twice before you agree and/or make sure that you NEVER use that account to post anything personal that you wouldn't want shared.
This has never been any different. I've filled in paper surveys which distribute the same personal information to God-knows-who-but-probably-only-the-people-listed-in-the-T&C's.
If you're that worried, don't fill in sexual quizzes on Facebook, or do it under a different identity. To be more honest, given the current state of that site, I'd be more worried that after filling in that kind of quiz, it would blast the results or even my answers to my listed friends and family even if it's just by posting them to my own page. That's a million times worse than having a drug company see a "TRUE" pop up in their advertising database against my Facebook ID. I can ignore the ads...
That is on purpose to filter out those who will be deterred by advertisements with creative spellings (i.e. v1@gr@). The advertising companies are very concerned about not sending unwanted messages to anyone.
My webcomic
that it will be known that if I were an X-Man, I would be Storm.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
After taking enough of these quizes. . .
. . .the spammers better know enough that I don't need their male enhancement .
You're overcompensating to the point that it's obvious you have a problem.
I joined Facebook last month and was surprised to see how much control was given to the 'apps' by default.
One of the first notices I got was something like "Your friends X and Y have taken this IQ Test - can you beat their score?" Wanting to be a good sport I started the quiz - only to notice plenty of fine print granting the program access to my personal information/friends list, etc.
Needless to say, there was no longer any need to take the quiz, as the intelligence of my friends is now suspect.
You can block the application, just click "HIDE" then the drop down shows "hide (user)" and "hide (application". The second form the list is what you want. I use it all the time!
If I truly believe that shouldn't the resulting number be around 4?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Which Feminine Hygiene Product Are You? quiz....
I was working on a site called "Is Your Credit Card Number Hot or Not" but this news might taint my target market to think that I'm using the site for the wrong reasons. Oh well, good thing I didn't spend too much time on the companion sites "Your SSN Can Predict Your Future" and "How Your Mother's Maiden Name Affects Impotence"
Dual Opteron < $600
--or--
What your passwords say about you...
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
I just sold the fact that dgatwood has anal retention issues to Ex-lax.