Computer Privacy: January 2006 Archives

So this person data mined a bunch of amazon wishlists. (Apparently the hard way, by web scraping rather than by using the easier and more efficient amazon web api.) He was able to then do some matching on book titles to determine which wish lists were more or less subversive. Then he used google maps to figure out where people lived.

You can bet the next time I interview a job candidate I'm going to check out what is on their amazon wish list. (Note to self, clean up amazon wish list next time I interview for a job.)

The best part is that this little experiment shows how data privacy issues often involve people voluntarily giving up their private information for a reason, in this case the reason is getting better presents. (BTW, I'm still waiting for that New Yorker Cartoon book.) So much for worrying about the FBI going to the library to figure out what I read.

[Link courtesy of Dave's Picks]