Identitiy Harvesting
Source: Wired 02.08 “Unmasked by Facebook”
There is a fine line between data gathering for marketing purposes and invasion of privacy. With the increasing popularity of on-line purchasing, one may be surprised to discover how much companies know about them. There are many thriving companies whose service is to provide businesses with leads (potential buyers). Scott Brown of Wired describes some of these companies as tracking regimes who “dissect you site by site, purchase by purchase.”
The term “identity harvesting” sounds uncomfortably similar to “identity theft” to me, but there is a key difference: the perpetrator. Identity theft is an act of criminals whose main purpose is to steal money from victims. Identity harvesting is an act of marketers whose main purpose is to persuade you to spend your money on specific products. Both perpetrators seem to share a common goal of remaining anonymous.
Its easy to understand why criminals want to remain anonymous, but why do marketers care? Don’t they think people would willingly submit their on-line purchase history to anyone who cared to know it? Not me. I must not be the only reluctant buyer, or the tracking regimes wouldn’t be surviving. We must be agreeing to broadcast our on-line history as part of some fine print somewhere, or it could easily seen as invasion of privacy. Then again, if there is not a line being crossed already, why is it slipped into the fine print? Facebook was called out for compiling users’ purchase histories, so they backed off… maybe we should all keep shouting.
