Privacy Paranoia
Tuesday, August 8th, 2006Little bits of privacy lost here and there seem harmless, but are they adding up to something? Lately, I feel like companies know me better than my friends.
On my birthday, I got happy birthday cards from insurance companies. On my wedding anniversary, I got advertisements from jewelry companies. After my son was born, I got ads for baby products. When rates dropped below our mortgage rate, I got offers that showed exactly how much money I could save. When my house was listed for sale, I got ads for moving services. After we moved, local businesses sent me welcome letters.
I feel like I’m being tracked and targeted by guerrilla marketers. It’s all public information, so what’s the big deal, right?
I think someone needs to build a website that collects information from various public sources and publishes profiles on people. It could contain:
- birth announcements
- phone and address directories
- real estate transactions, mortgages
- GIS property map, satellite imagery
- municipal court cases, state prisoner incarceration
- deadbeat parents, child support non-payments
- voter registration
Cross-referenced and processed, you might see that Bob is 32, married to Jane with 2 children who are ages 1 and 3, and they just paid $300,000 for a house at 500 Main Street. Click here for a picture of the house. Here are phone numbers and e-mail addresses. They registered as democrat last election. Bob got a speeding ticket last week.
Maybe it could be a social network, only instead of updating your own profile, you update someone else’s. Give the scoop on who the person is, link them to other people they associate with, and enter revealing information about them. It could be like wikipedia for people.
For a nominal fee, you could subscribe with the site and have your information kept private. It could be called… Privacy4Sale.com. Hey, you gave up your privacy, so now you have to pay!