Re: Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Brock N. Meeks" <bmeeks () cox net>
Date: March 2, 2009 12:12:06 AM EST
To: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>, <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers

I read it right, Jim.  I know it the article SAYS it was made  
anonymous...
and you're just taking their word for it?

Let's see, ah yes, the Adult Entertainment Industry are experts at info
security and de-identification -- both subjects that even long time
professions, such as the health care industry, struggle with today.

I don't know about you, but I'm betting that the information coming  
from the
Adult Entertainment providers wasn't gathered, scrubbed and cross- 
tabbed by
a Warton School graduate (but I'm willing to be proven wrong, I'm just
saying...)

> Oh?  I'd say that anyone who pays for ANYthing with a credit card is
> a FOOL if the have the delusion that every detail of their purchases
> aren't tracked and analyzed. Endlessly.
>
> And often much more intrusively than this study described!  By all
> sorts of operators - grocery stores, other merchants, advertisers,
> banks, credit-reporting agencies, the credit-card companies
> themselves, govt agencies, etc etc etc.

Yeah, I get that, Jim.  And I think as a society we've already "given  
up" on
this privacy space (though, personally, I think there's still a lot of
"fight" left to fight there).  We've become accepting of such likely
intrusions.  Why?  Perhaps because they are carried out in the  
background,
used for purposes that aren't, well, shoved in our face, as it were.

But when you have the adult entertainment industry suddenly funneling  
data
to some researcher for publication and dissemination to the public at  
large,
well, then people start to get twitchy.

How about if all the pharmacies inside the nation's Wal-Mart's suddenly
started giving out "anonymous" data about everyone using Viagra  
(wait...)
ah, about everyone that is on an anti-psychotic or anti-depressant and
that's turned over to a researcher -- funded by the insurance industry  
-- to
see if "Blue States are Happier Than Red States" or whatever.

I don't really care if someone siphons off my deep, dark, grocery secret
that I religiously buy squeeze cheese instead of expensive Brie, but you
know, no needs to know that I've watched "Air Bud" 247 times... alone.





On 3/1/09 8:21 PM, "Jim Warren" <jwarren () well com> wrote:

> Hey Brock (and Dave) --
>
> Great to hear from ya!  :-)  But ...
>
> At 1:50 PM -0500 3/1/09, Brock N. Meeks wrote:
> > Leaving the original <ahem> thrust of this message aside, my foremost
> > question was "how did the researcher obtain this data?"
> >
> > I've known Jim Warren for a couple of decades and I know how he  
> > values
> > privacy, which is why I'm curious as to why Jim didn't raise the  
> > subject
> > himself.
>
> I didn't need to raise the issue.  It was clearly stated in the
> second sentence of the New Scientist article - http://bit.ly/ZkOq :
>
> "A new nationwide study [study apparently available as a PDF file] of
> anonymised credit-card receipts from a major online adult
> entertainment provider finds little variation in consumption between
> states."
>
> Please note it says that the data was ANONYMISED.  And as you also
> note from the article, it was further generalized to only the
> porn-purchasing credit-card holders' ZIP codes.
>
> No names.  No addresses.
>
> This is comparable to, or even more anonymised than, publicly
> available Census data!
>
>
> > In the New Scientist article, we read the researcher has a client  
> > that runs
> > adult entertainment web sites and that this company provided the  
> > researcher
> > "with roughly two years of credit card data from 2006 to 2008 that  
> > included
> > a purchase date and each customer's postal code."
> >
> > Say what?  I'm sure the last thing these subscribers thought their  
> > credit
> > card info would be used for was any kind of social behavior study.
>
> Oh?  I'd say that anyone who pays for ANYthing with a credit card is
> a FOOL if the have the delusion that every detail of their purchases
> aren't tracked and analyzed. Endlessly.
>
> And often much more intrusively than this study described!  By all
> sorts of operators - grocery stores, other merchants, advertisers,
> banks, credit-reporting agencies, the credit-card companies
> themselves, govt agencies, etc etc etc.
>
> You want anonymous?  You pay with cash.  (Which is rather difficult
> to do for online "services".)
>
>
> > Perhaps the "privacy" policies of such web sites informed  
> > subscribers that
> > such a use of their information would be possible (I've not studied  
> > the
> > privacy policies of such web sites, I just look at the pictures...  
> > Wait...)
>
> Privacy policies for credit-card users?!  Surely you jest!  (E.g.,
> ever seen any privacy policy when you pay for groceries with a credit
> card?)
>
>
> > If say, oh, for example, the Airline industry, turned over this  
> > kind of
> > "anonymized"  credit card data to homeland security for a study of
> > (whatever) I think Jim would be more than a bit concerned.
>
> My strong impression is that the airlines absolutely DO turn over ALL
> of their flight reservation details to Homeland "Security" (and gawd
> knows which other surveillance agencies!) - routinely and
> automatically.  Like they told the tom-cat before his operation -
> it's for our own good.  ;-)
>
> --jim






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