'Dating' Site Imports 250k Facebook Profiles

mark72005 sends this snippet from Wired: "How does a unknown dating site, with the absurd intention of destroying Facebook, launch with 250,000 member profiles on the first day? Simple. You scrape data from Facebook. At least, that's the approach taken by two provocateurs who launched Lovely-Faces.com this week, with profiles — names, locations and photos — scraped from publicly accessible Facebook pages. The site categorizes these unwitting volunteers into personality types, using a facial recognition algorithm, so you can search for someone in your general area who is 'easy going,' 'smug' or 'sly.' ... [The creators] say they will take down a user’s profile if a person asks, and the site doesn’t have any indication they are actually trying to make any money. Instead, it’s part of a series of prank sites, the first two of which aimed at Google and Amazon, intended to make people think more about data in the age of internet behemoths. Moreover, it’s a bit funny hearing Facebook complain about scraping of personal data that is quasi-public."

Comments

How can I update my Lovely-Faces.com profile?

[Locke2005]

It's seems their "facial recognition algorithm" has categorized me as a "stalker" and "potential date-rapist"!

Thinking more...

[shia84]

Those people running the site behind the "make people think more about data" link should be made to think more about server capacity

oh great. people will think i'm a furry

[Nyder]

I have my cat's pick on my facebook pic, now i'm going to get a ton of furry peeps wanting dates.

Guess I better get Second Life up and running.