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How Big Data Justifies Mining Your Social Data
GMGruman writes "Paul Krill reports that one of the big uses of the new "Big Data" analytics technology is to mine the information people post through social networking. Which led him to ask 'What gives Twitter, Facebook, et al. the right to mine that data?' It turns out, users do when they sign up for social networking services, even if they don't realize that — but less clear is the ownership of other information on the Web that these tools also mine."
The 'right to mine data' or the right to privacy?
i think it's time click-through "I Agree" ten mile pages for new accounts get a test in court. people "sign" away too much, and not many people read those "agreements".
Which led him to ask 'What gives Twitter, Facebook, et al. the right to mine that data?' It turns out, users do when they sign up for social networking services, even if they don't realize that
End of discussion. Pointless article is pointless.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
There's also a clause about 'organ harvesting' that I seem to have missed.
Think about that next time you tweet about your kitty cat spilling milk on your keyboard.
There is none. Nor should there be.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The curse of the internet. It permeates everything with press releases being put out as "news" and editorials, with product placements and outright sales pitches. But the answer to his question should have been more than obvious... I'm fairly certain that if people understood what they were "signing", We'd see a different world.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I agree with your post. By reading these words you agree to check out the Android app in my sig.
PocketPermissions Android Permission Guide
Summary: when you click "I Agree", you're agreeing to let the site do whatever with whatever for whatever reason.
Ya, duh. What is this, 1994 ?
-Billco, Fnarg.com
This type of data mining is not something that bothers me. I think it should be more in the open, and maybe regulated to protect the average consumer, but it is not horrible. What I find horrible is places like Krogers and CVS that offer products far above prevailing prices and require one to have a card that will allow them to track and collect huge amounts of private data. Sure, we don't have to shop at CVS or Krogers, and sure they provide the occasional really good deal, but if i were to regulate something it would be these scams, not services that actually provide a useful service in exchange for data.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
They need to step back and think about that a bit more. It gives them the permission and ability, not necessarily the right. But also people that use Twitter, Facebook, etc need to understand also YOU ARE NOT THE CUSTOMER! You are the product, you never have been the customer, and probably never will be deal with it and don't put personal info up, and as soon as you find one that works to treat you as the customer instead of the product jump on it, and pay because in the end thats what it will take to make one.
Canadian citizens have a right to Privacy that is stronger.
Regardless of what the American lawyers for these companies tell you, it's in the Canadian Constitution.
And, for that matter, EU citizens also have stronger Rights in these regards, especially in terms of data sharing.
Just because a lawyer tells you something, doesn't make it true - my family is full of lawyers and lots of my friends are lawyers or judges too.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
What the headline promises is how "Big Data" justifies mining personal data, not on what basis it is legal for them to do so. I'd like an answer or an opinion on that, but I'm sure it would be the all-too-obvious data-for-advertising-to-make-the-service-free.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
That's nice. If you're not the customer, but merely the product, then you have no obligations to the website or to the website's customers to act in any way that conforms to the expectations of the website or their real customers. When the website admins complain that you always block their ads, tell them to fuck off. When they complain that the information you gave them was fake, tell them to fuck off. It's good to be a product :)
All your data are belong to us.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Translated Quote made by Facebook's European Policy Director to the Norwegian Data Inspectorate:
"–It was either a misinterpretation, or it was poorly worded on our part. Now the conditions are changed so that there is no doubt: It is you who owns the data, you only give us access to them. "
Google translate of the article in question:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aftenposten.no%2Fkul_und%2Farticle4056026.ece&act=url
to any on-line entity, i'm an 80-year-old Afghan blind and handicapped woman living in zipcode 20593 - it's my on-line 'presence' :-)
p.s. the end of second st. SW is a vermin-filled pus hole
Those corporations aren't evil, they're providing a valuable service for which you pay nothing. To pay their bills and make a profit, they chose to harvest data which you consent to give up, instead of charging you a monthly fee.
I don't like that deal, so I don't use Facebook. Others have a right to make that deal.
gets what they deserve.
I've heard this stuff a thousand times before, and I'm still curious: why should I give a crap? The 'personal information' they gather is hardly personal.
...and people give me weird looks when I suggest that they should read the things they "accept" when they install software and sign up for websites.
Palm trees and 8
"Did you know that Facebook records every single thing you do on their website from the very moment you sign up?"
"So what?"
That is an exchange that I had with someone when I was an undergrad. People do not actually care if companies are mining their private lives, they just want to use Facebook and Twitter and not have to think about anything.
Palm trees and 8
What gives them the right is that anything you post is PUBLIC.
If I go yell out strings of words in PUBLIC I would have little cause to be angry with people who heard and wrote them down.
PUBLIC people. PUBLIC. That's where everyone can hear what you say, you have to night to "privacy" in PUBLIC.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As I understand it, these ad pushers, ahem "Marketing Research Firms," NEED this data to effectively target their message, or something. But they fail, epically, consistently, and oftentimes, amusingly. Despite all this data to crunch into their algorithms, they just crank out stuff at random that is totally irrelevant to me or my interests. Even Netflix, who I allow and expect to use the information I give them for the purpose of coming up with recommendations, offers me something interesting only 15%-25% of the time. If Netflix cannot do that, what hope does Big Data have of reading my mind with data that is probably more incorrect than accurate?
What's silly is that I could eliminate half of Netflix's wrong suggestions if I could give them some simple parameters of what I am not interested in. I think Big Data needs to stop trying to read the consumer tea leaves from surreptitiously collected data relying on legally tenuous sneak-wrap and click-wrap, and try ASKING us and listen to what we tell them.
Is this honestly surprising? This was known but ignored for like a decade now. Remember Google Chrome's original ToS claiming ownership of anything you do using the Google Chrome browser? That was late in this whole debacle... not even early. People just didn't care. Now they do. Poor them?
On this subject, I wanted to mention my quick script to check for subtle changes in text that you see often, such as Terms & Conditions that pop up every time you use a frequently-used Web service. It will alert you to small changes that you might not otherwise notice because you habitually click on the "I Agree To These Terms And Conditions" button without going through all the text each time. Simply select the text and copy to the clipboard, and then run the script.
It's in my journal entry. I use it several times a month.
Just a note that the script was done quite a while ago and is rather poorly written. It works with KDE 3 (I've since upgraded to KDE 4). Sometime "Real Soon Now" I'll get around to:
- replacing the clipboard with "xclip" which seems to work for both the KDE 4 and GNOME clipboards
- making variable names not ALLCAPS
- rewriting the option detection so it doesn't have to use grep just to detect cmd-line options
- replacing backticks with $( )
- etc. etc. etc.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
iEYEABECAAYFAk16Li4ACgkQLnc9OVO/yZ5mVQCgnj+JeGJfZKfTMO/0mgm+dctH
8Y0Anj/lxmXnnnGgtJJyRAn7LT+BZLOe
=1LN6
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
This is the GPG signature of the text with all spaces, tabs, newlines and other non-printable characters removed.
To check validity of this signature, put the plain text into PlainTextFile, and the signature (including beginning and end lines) into SignatureFile, and use this command:
tr -cd [:graph:] < PlainTextFile | gpg --verify SignatureFile -
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
So say I installed Twitter a few months ago, said "I Agree" to all the necessary questions to install the software. When does that agreement end? I certainly never ever ever had to "Disagree" or "Agree Not to Collect Infor on me" anytime I ever uninstalled any software. But it's a web service. Does it say, when I uninstall the twitter app from my phone, is agreement null and void? Because that is the only software I used to access twitter.
I assume that once you go online and possibly close your account, that will cancel the agreement, but does it? and what about online services that don't really delete your account (facebook) and keep all of your info? Does the "Agreement" still say they can collect info? or if I am able to delete my account, have I given up the right to that data that was collected during my stay?
I'm going to stop thinking now...