Internet Nakedness

I created a LinkedIn account a few weeks ago. Today I got an e-mail asking me if I knew certain people that I could connect with on LinkedIn. There were six names. Two of them I recognized.

One of them was the father of a kid my son played racquetball with a few years back. I don't have any online associations with him at all, except that he's sent me a few e-mails, and I've sent him some. He's not a Twitter or Facebook friend.

The other one was someone I know on both Twitter and Facebook, but haven't e-mailed directly.

Yet somehow, LinkedIn (a company supposedly separate from Twitter, Facebook, and Google) was able to connect me to these two individuals, recognizing that there was some connection between us.

How did it determine those connections? From Gmail? (That might apply to the first one, but not the second.) From Twitter or Facebook? (That would apply to the second, but not to the first.)

I don't know, I find this ability of companies to guess and be correct even in 2 out of 6 guesses about who my associates are a bit disconcerting. I never even gave my Twitter or Facebook account information to LinkedIn. And how would it have access to my Gmail information? I never did a Gmail search for friends in LinkedIn; never gave them my Gmail password. Is Google selling that information to them? Must be. I don't see any other way they could have made the connection.

So, clearly, all of us are just a commodity on the Internet -- like pieces of fruit in a huge farmer's market called "Internet Marketing." Your privacy, my privacy -- they don't matter. All that matters is that some company can make a connection between me and my associates; or me and my buying habits; or me and my online viewing habits; and somehow, someway, make a dollar off of it. What you or I want really doesn't matter.

I think about that scene in "Minority Report" where Tom Cruise is walking along and all these advertisements are speaking to him personally in an endless, annoying cacophony of marketing madness, and I wonder how close we are to that at this moment. If things continue to progress in their current way, I'd say not too far off.

Comments

Anonymous said…
you brought this back? i thought u had switched over to tumblr or another blog
October 16, 2010 at 3:44 AM
Neil said…
Hey, Anonymous! No, this blog never left. I just haven't been posting here that much. I use Tumblr for things like posting pictures or things that are too long for Twitter. I use this blog or things that are more thought-out.

Is this Cong I'm talking with? :-)
October 16, 2010 at 7:28 AM
Anonymous said…
what I was looking for, thanks
July 15, 2011 at 8:48 AM
Anonymous said…
If he sent you emails, he probably had your address in his contacts. If he did a search for all contacts, they would have a connection from him to you.

When you join with your email address, he would be connected to it already, not through anything you did.

I know, blog post from years ago, but for future readers the line "Is Google selling that information to them? Must be. I don't see any other way they could have made the connection." isn't the only conclusion.
February 25, 2012 at 8:55 AM
Neil said…
Granted, that's not the only conclusion.

Correction to what you wrote, though. You say, "When you join with your email address, he would be connected to it already, not through anything you did." You're assuming that I joined LinkedIn with the same e-mail address I used to converse with that person. That's not correct. I joined with my business e-mail address, under my own domain name. The person I had corresponded with was through my personal Gmail e-mail address. So two entirely different addresses.

But, granted, he could have done a search for his Gmail contacts, even if I didn't do a search for mine.
March 4, 2012 at 2:40 AM
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