Creepy

[Richard Gaskin]

Shari wrote:
 > I've been playing hookie for awhile, Richard Gaskin, yes I did answer
 > you, did you receive?

Yes I did, thank you.  So nice to see you back here.


 > Here's what's creepy.  I'm attempting to create a Facebook account
 > (yes, this is revelant to the forum...) because someone turned me
 > onto a really cool marketing thing you can do with it.
 >
 > I'm not set up fully yet but there's this long list of potential
 > friends.

This is even creepier:

Mark Wieder wrote:
 > I believe Facebook by default uses your computer's address book.

How does FaceBook obtain this information through the browser?

Sounds like a very serious security exposure in browsers.  After all, if 
FaceBook can do it, any site -- and any hacked site -- can do it too.


Randall Reetz wrote:
 > Isnt it just a little ironic that you want to use facebook
 > to spam people you know, but you find something creepy about
 > facebook doing the same thing to you?

Not all marketing is spam.  Personally, I prefer to know the details of 
someone's marketing efforts before I'll risk labeling them as "spam".

Most things on FaceBook require voluntary confirmation to participate. 
For example, a good many companies have fan sites there, which require 
that folks explicitly join.  Even friend invitations require explicit 
confirmation from the user.

What's at play here appears to be something else: a Carnivore-style data 
mining to seek connections between people that extends beyond the bounds 
of the FaceBook system itself.

If indeed she'd never entered Rev among her interests in her profile, 
nor had yet added any friends through which the system might seek 
connections, this seems to me a bit creepy, and is just one more reason 
my FaceBook participation is very limited.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  Revolution training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com