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posted by martyb on Saturday August 29 2015, @01:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-wonder-if-they-track-sales-of-tin-foil? dept.

http://www.cio.com/article/2977027/intel-reveals-big-datas-dirty-little-secret.html

The article is entitled "Intel reveals big data's dirty little secret" but I read it a little bit differently.

From the article: "Companies are spending billions on tools and engineering to analyse big data, though many are hampered by one little problem: they still don't know what to do with all the data they collect."

This means that, of all the egregious breaches of personal privacy that companies regularly perform (the Target-knows-you're-pregnant-when-your-parents-don't story comes to mind), they have still only scratched the surface of making sense of your information, and using it effectively. Which means that, as Big Data gets people who actually know what they're doing, the more frightening the possibilities become, which is probably only a matter of time.

How would you feel about getting a bunch of targeted spam from divorce lawyers because your wife/husband's personal details were in the big Ashley Madison data leak, before you even heard about it? What if you were the guy who got drunk and put a profile up one time after a big fight but never followed up on it? This is why I don't have a Facebook account.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @05:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @05:22PM (#229471)

    This is why I don't have any friends who use Facebook.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @05:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @05:49PM (#229485)

    >This is why I don't have any friends

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @08:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @08:20PM (#229540)

    Plenty of good friends, but none that use fb. There are probably some friends of friends (or kids of friends), but that's another "degree of separation" and not worth following, imo. Just googled "facebook my name" and found a handful of namesakes (relatively uncommon name) and no pics or entries pointing to me. So it is possible to avoid fb.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday August 30 2015, @02:42AM

      by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Sunday August 30 2015, @02:42AM (#229668)

      Just googled "facebook my name"

      Instead of using Facebook, you use something created by another company known for its egregious violations of your privacy. I would suggest not using any of them.