Judging You By the Online Company You Keep

theodp writes "Network analysis uses data about your social network interactions to make assumptions and predictions about your behavior. The Economist notes the upside for companies looking to sell products. But don't forget about the downside, warns Adrian Chen, of living in a world where network analysis is used by financial firms to determine risky borrowers by looking at social ties, or by Internet businesses to determine which customers are more equal than others (nice to see Microsoft's back on the forefront of some tech!). So, did Mom envision Social Network Analytics when she gave you that you-are-the-company-you-keep lecture?"

Comments

My friends are all entrepreneurs.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a PHP and Rails entrepreneur and all of my friends and associates are entrepreneurs too. I'm glad to be networked to them using twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and flickr. We've been working in this Starbucks since about 2002 but I know that sometime soon our ideas will take off and we'll all be millionaires.

The definition of due dilligence is on the table

[Zero__Kelvin]

"There is nothing wrong about doing good due diligence before lending money. "

I don't believe that is what people are arguing against. The question is if it actually qualifies as due diligence. Would you really give an atta boy to your local bank when they refused to loan you money because you sometimes talk to that ne'er do well (in their eyes) Johnny down the street?