In 2007 Sears attempted to start its own data mining project and sent out a proposal to its customers asking them to be part of a group to better understand their buying habits and ipso facto better service them. What the customers didn't know was how deep Sears was really delving into their personal lives and computers. Information like bank loans and medical superscription's where buried inside the contract and most of the people who signed up with this service didn't even read the contract just said yes received a measly 10 dollars compensation for joining and unknowingly let sears see all their laundry, dirty or clean. Sears was ordered by the FTC to end this project and destroy all data collected for this project and to cease and desist. This project seemed to be the start of a even faster growing trend of data gathering from retailers to social media everyone who is one the internet is susceptible to data mining. This article warns about letting yourself go too far in your posting of private or sensitive material on the internet. No matter how secure you think it is once its on the internet its out there forever.
Source :
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2059237,00.html
i don't have a problem with what they did, i mean they were a type of 'honest' about what they were doing, the participants were just too dumb to read what they were signing. i do think it's super disturbing they're capable of finding that information regardless of whether or not they have permission. makes me twice about what information i put out over the internet.
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