catgofire's dashboard

LetsSueSpock: What I'm asking is, how would Spock take information from private sites? They're private -- it's not like Spock has an all-access pass to the Internet. When it crawls the Internet, it's just like you surfing it, but faster. One scenario that could reflect what you're talking about is if a public profile has been recently privatized. Say I had a MySpace profile that was public, and now I make that page private. Spock will have it there until it crawls MySpace again and sees that the profile has become private. There are two actions I can take at this point: if the profile is mine, I can request that it be taken down. If not, I can rest assured that Spock is working hard to refresh its index and take care of the problem. If you have an actual example of what you mentioned that you don't think falls into this scenario, I'd be interested to see it. – catgofire, on August 04, 2008 19:18

Again- if it's not public, how did Spock get it? If you go to your page and click on the blue triangle next to your name, a little "vote" window will pop up. If you click on the "who voted" link in that box, it will tell you who added your name. If the only name there is "spock robot" or something similar, your full name was somewhere on the Internet and it was added automatically (no human interaction). If there's a name there, then that person is who added your name, not Spock. Seriously... Spock cannot acquire private information on its own... it's impossible. Think about it. – catgofire, on April 17, 2008 20:07

If it's not public, how did Spock get it? It's not like Spock broke into your house and stole your information... Everything on Spock is from somewhere else (public) on the Internet.

Haha... I was waiting for you to bring that up.

I am in no way an Official Representative. I don't work for Spock. I'm a college student -- I am planning to work there this summer as an intern. I have never talked to anyone from Spock about this website, or this issue in general. I also have nothing to gain from posting my opinion here, and nothing to lose from not posting it. The views I express in no way represent Spock or its employees.

If you look on my page, you'll see that this is the only topic on GetSatisfaction that I've ever contributed to. It's something that I think a lot of people misunderstand, and something that this thread has caused me to think deeply about. I am choosing to work for Spock in the future because I hold these views, and not the other way around.

If you want to use the fact that I am going to intern for Spock this summer to discredit what I've said above, you're free to do that. But you should know: it doesn't. You said it yourself in your last reply. It's all public.

There's a comment on my blog that I think you'd like (it agrees with you). It raises some interesting points:

http://blog.catgofire.com/2008/2/21/w...

I can't believe you linked to my Spock profile. That's private. ;)

"...whoever they intend to share my info with" -- They intend to share it with everyone, just as your /public/ profiles are shared with everyone.

"Spock takes public profiles...". Thank you, end of discussion. Seriously.

I... explain things to people on GetSatisfaction.com ...for free... And I usually don't charge people when I offer my opinion on something. So yes and no. I don't do their PR, but I do it for free.

I don't work for Spock.

Me too... I don't think he read it.

Ok guys, I have a little story/metaphor for you. It's about "the Internet".

Sab, Maria, J.O.D., Charles--

You are in a mall. It's a very crowded mall. There are lots of people milling around. You are wearing a name tag. You chose what to put on your name tag. My name tag reads "catgofire". Your name tag might also include other information, such as your real name, your age, or what TV shows you like to watch. Anything, really. Sometimes my name tag reads "Justin Brown, male, 20, likes House and The Office, lives in Pittsburgh PA".

This mall has a lot of stores. You can change your name tag when you enter each store, but most people choose to just keep their name tag the same in all stores-- it's easier that way. All guests who enter the store are required to sign a guestbook. They can sign it however they'd like, and it's usually just with the information that's on their name tag.

Remember that through all of this, you are free to decide what to do. You don't even have to enter the mall if you don't want to. You can change your name tag as often as you like, and you can also put completely false information on your name tag. It's your choice to enter stores, but most stores have the policy that once you've signed their guestbook, you cannot easily remove your entry. So keep this in mind when entering stores.

This mall is not only for shopping and entertainment... it's become a social sensation where people like to just hang out with their friends and meet new people. But there are so many people in the mall, it's really hard sometimes to find who you're looking for. Enter Spock. Spock is this really smart guy who has gone around and read all the guestbooks and memorized their information. He knows this won't be a problem because the people who signed the guestbook /chose/ to do so with information they /chose/ to share. I tell Spock that I'm looking for my classmates from "Grayslake high school". *Poof*! Spock shows me where they are, and maybe even their pictures if they /chose/ to leave one in a guestbook. I thank Spock, because I wouldn't have found these people otherwise.

But now I hear a ruckus and I look over to see people trying to start a fight with Spock! "What has Spock done?" I think to myself, "Has he broken into someone's home and stolen their information? Has he taken something from someone without their consent and put it on display?" Spock sees me watching and knows what I'm thinking. "That's impossible!" Spock yells. "I can't leave this mall! I can't even read name tags! All I can do is read guestbooks!" "Strange," I think, "These people are mad at Spock for reading their guestbook entry? The entry they wrote themselves, with full knowledge that it was a guestbook and not a diary? What's wrong here?"

I think what's wrong is that some guestbooks give the illusion of being a diary. Not all guestbooks have big warnings that say "This is public information! Do not write anything here that you don't want everyone to know!" And maybe they should. But Spock has no way of discerning that. He just reads their content.

Maria and Sab,

Spock is only cataloging what is already on the web, which you ostensibly have control over.

To remove your public Facebook search listing (and prevent search services like Spock and Google from indexing you), go to http://facebook.com/privacy.php?view=... and uncheck the check box under "My public search listing". You may also want to restrict the option under "Which Facebook users can find me in search?" if you want to prevent random people from searching for you.