Tynan Writes

Social media search: A stalker’s paradise?

Don’t look now, but you’re being watched. And now that I’ve signed up for Spokeo.com, I could be the one watching you.

Spokeo is a search engine that uses email addresses to find people across the social Web. Give the site your log-on info for Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, or AOL – or just upload your personal address book; Spokeo will scour 41 social networks and collect all information associated with each email address. Blog entries, Linked In profiles, Flickr photostreams, Twitter tweets, Digg comments, Amazon wish lists – and a whole lot more – all on one tidy little Web page. And every time they add new content, Spokeo lets you know.

In other words, for just $3 to $5 a month Spokeo gives you the ability to stalk near-total strangers in new and fascinating ways.

I don’t know about you, but my email address book is filled with people I couldn’t pick out of a police lineup. I’ve probably met fewer than 2 percent of these people; I’ve spoken on the phone to maybe 1 out of 20. But suddenly I have this window into their lives that’s, well, just a little bit creepy.

For instance: There’s a senior PR rep for Yahoo whom I met once five years ago. Now I know what she looks like nine months pregnant and what color she’s painted her child’s nursery (thank you, Flickr). There’s the former director of communications for a huge Web company who also apparently frequents discussion forums for the Paranormal Research Society. (Remember: The truth is out there.) Then there’s this person named Indigo – I haven’t the foggiest idea who she is or how she got into my address book – but I know she’s a freak for The Beatles and the soundtrack from Juno.

Suddenly I have insights into the musical, literary, and political tastes of a whole swath of people I wouldn’t know what to say to in an elevator (though I guess we could start with their musical, literary, and political tastes).

On the other hand, Spokeo helped me find two old friends on Facebook and MySpace whom I’d been unable to locate using Google. So it’s not all bad.

The odd thing is that Spokeo isn’t breaking any privacy rules….

For the rest of this fascinating entry, see my Culture Crash blog on Computerworld.

Tags: Facebook, pipl, Privacy, spock, spokeo, stalking, Web 2.0, wink, zabusearch

4 Responses to “Social media search: A stalker’s paradise?”

on 27 Jan 2009 at 12:05 pm 1K.

I want you to apologize to your readers at large for your “12 Photos That Never Should Have Been Published Online” article as it appeared on PC World and MSN. Your comments and even your selections are openly misogynist and homophobic. #1 and #8 are especially offensive. How could you think it’s acceptable to mock people for crossdressing and being homosexual? What year do you think this is? You should be ashamed of yourself, both for your comments and the fact you, despite your supposed tech savvy, know nothing about internet culture. There are more scandalous photos out there with juicier stories. You seem to have selected yours simply to show your belief that women belong in a closet. Shame on you.

on 27 Jan 2009 at 3:53 pm 2dan tynan

ok, well, let’s start with the actual story, which can be found here:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/150920/say_cheese_12_photos_that_should_never_have_been_posted_online.html

#1 is kevin colvin, a guy dressed up like tinkerbelle. hey, it’s fine to dress up like a fairy, but it’s pretty dumb to a) lie to your boss by calling in sick, and b) post that picture online on the same day you called in sick, and not expect anyone to notice. that’s what I was making fun of. the story was news because it was one of the first times that using a social network resulted in somebody being fired. I have no idea about kevin’s sexual preferences, and unless “K” stands for “kevin” (as in colvin), you probably don’t either. cross dressing does not equal gay. assuming it does is, well, kind of homophobic, don’t you think?

#8 is about tamara hoover, a gay woman artist who got canned from a teaching job for being a gay woman artist (and posting nude pix to that effect online). I’m not making fun of her, I’m making fun of the folks in texas who fired her. I am sympathetic to her plight. firing her was stupid. that makes me a misogynist? now texans, they have a right to be a little steamed at me.

roughly half of those photos were suggested by my editors, and the rest I came up with. I was hired to write this piece because my editors felt I could bring a humorous touch to it. the fact that msn and the washington post, among others, picked it up, and it got huge web traffic, means they were probably correct.

I think you need to develop a sense of humor, or possibly borrow one from somebody.

peace.

on 28 Jan 2009 at 10:29 am 3Being a Geek Goddess « Eileen’s Technology blog

[...] Dan responded to a post I’d made over on my other blog when I posted about Dame Wendy Hall. He pointed me to a book written by his wife Christina Wood and a blog interview he’d done with her about her new book, How to be a Geek Goddess. [...]

on 30 Jan 2009 at 6:16 am 4synodinos