more on Data mining of Amazon wishlists

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Kate <kate () pulpculture org>
Date: January 8, 2006 3:16:35 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Data mining of Amazon wishlists

Years ago, I was doing a presentation, to explain to corporate users  
how easily people could find out information about them by searching  
on @corporation.com to find corporate users who'd used the address  
for personal pages, forums, archived discussion lists, and so forth.  
This was years ago when corporations hadn't clamped down as much as  
they do today, still uncertain whether to play hardball with  
employees (and also when they economy was roaring, so they weren't  
interested in being overly dictatorial.

We got talking about mistaken identities and I showed them that it  
wasn't always safe to assume anything with just a name (or anything  
else for that matter). At that point, I used the name of a friend  
since everyone always got a kick out of the fact that, if you  
searched on his name, you get everything from horse trainer to  
priest. Doing that led me to his Amazon Wish list. (I bought him  
something for the fun of it since, from the content and the address,  
it was clear that this was who it was.)

I also immediately made sure my Wish List wasn't publicly viewable  
any longer. I really don't wish to have strangers knowing my personal  
taste in merchandise -- at least not then, and especially not given  
the business I was in at the time.


Kate

"You know how it is, come for the animal porn,
stay for the cultural analysis." -- Michael Berube

Bitch | Lab
http://blog.pulpculture.org


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