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
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts On Growing Old

You spend the first part of your life trying to be old, trying to convince everyone that you're older than you are, that you're just as good -- if not better -- than a grown-up. Then, when you're in your late teens, you put the brakes on trying to be older. Like a wall that you were speeding towards when it was just a speck in the distance, you now start to apply braking pressure to avoid hitting it. At first you only have to touch the brakes a little. You're almost 20, and 30's a long ways off. You barely have to think about it. But then you hit 30, and panic sets in. You start hitting the brakes a little harder, as you realize that that wall that was once so distant and so small is now steadily and quickly racing towards you, and the amount of highway between you and it is getting less and less all the time. But you comfort yourself in knowing that at least you're not 35 yet! But then you hit 35 and you realize that 40's up ahead, and you begin to p...
Read more

Reality, What a Concept

I drove down to my local Starbucks a little while ago, only, when I got there, it was closed. It was 11:20, and they closed at 11:00. For some reason, I had thought it was earlier. But, more than being closed, the intersection it was at was completely dark and deserted. Not a single soul around. So I immediately made a U-turn and headed home. It was kind of scary. On my way home, things seemed a little strange, and I took a right turn at a stop sign much faster than I normally would have (in fact, I didn't stop at all). I thought to myself, "This is very strange -- the deserted street, the weird driving -- almost like this isn't real. But I know that this is real, because here I am, driving up the street." I continued this conversation with myself, and whoever might be out there, until finally I said, "If this isn't real, then let me be home right now!" And immediately I woke up. OK, so it was a dream. And we've all had dreams like that, where we thi...
Read more