Ways Your Social Media Data Can Be Used Against You

People who use social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are not known for their reticence, many put just about any personal information imaginable out there.

Increasingly, there are signs that companies, from financial service firms to affiliate marketers, are targeting social media for new purposes.

Roger Thompson, chief research scientist with AVG, for example, believes his credit card company has incorporated data from his Facebook account into his credit card file. 

He told of an incident in which he had to verify information about himself for security purposes, and one of the questions was about his daughter-in-law, information that the bank didn't get from him and is only publicly available on Facebook, he wrote in a blog post.

Other stories focus on shady affiliate marketers weaseling their way onto a member's account and then sending sales pitches and product recommendations to their networks, supposedly from them.

The industry driving much of this activity is, not surprisingly, advertising, said Craig Wills, a professor of computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.


Look at all the advertising on ats! I'm not saying it happens here but then who really knows? 

People will go great lengths to make a quick buck even if it means taking and using your personal information against you.

www.technewsworld.com...

reply to post by SuperSlovak


Yep, this is absolutely happening. I know because it happened to me. A few years ago I was sent, on my birthday, a Gillette Fusion Razor in the mail for free from Gillette. I'd never owned a single product of theirs, never filled out a survey, gotten an email or made my birthday available anywhere other than Myspace/Facebook. That isn't to say there aren't other public records they could be mining but it was a bit creepy to say the least. Needless to say I never shaved with it, mainly because at the time I was just waking up to TPTB and the way the world works so I was pretty paranoid.

So if Corporations start sending out birthday gifts without ever being given your info... yeah... a little weird.

[edit on 6-2-2010 by Titen-Sxull]