NY TIMES (Front page) - Apr 23 - People are becoming more relaxed about privacy, having come to recognize that publicizing little pieces of information about themselves can result in serendipitous conversations. Mr. Brooks, a 38-year-old consultant for online dating sites, publishes his travel schedule on Dopplr. His DNA profile is available on 23andMe. And on Blippy, he makes public everything he spends with his Chase Mastercard, along with his spending at Netflix, iTunes and Amazon.com. “It’s very important to me to push out my character and hopefully my good reputation as far as possible, and that means being open,” he said, dismissing any privacy concerns by adding, “I simply have nothing to hide.” Blippy, which opened last fall, was the first site to introduce the notion of publishing credit card and other purchases. Last month it attracted ~125,000 visitors and closed an investment round of $11M from venture capitalists. “Ten years ago, people were afraid to buy stuff online. Now they’re sharing everything they buy,” said Barry Borsboom, a student at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who this year created a site called Please Rob Me. The site collected and published Foursquare updates that indicated when people were out socializing and therefore away from their homes. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES. Also in Argentinas LA NACION, SJ MERCURY NEWS.
Mark Brooks: Will people share this kind of extraneous information in their internet dating profile? Should they? Your comments please.
