There’s a great article in the NY Times today (which I think is originally from C-Net) about the rise of a little company called Rapleaf. With Facebook backer and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel behind them, Rapleaf has search technology that enables them, given only a mere email address, to scour social networking and other sites to create a composite of the person which could include everything from physical address to political affiliation to what applications the person has downloaded.
Thankfully, or so it seems, they don’t share the email addresses they have with anyone, or any companies. But what they do do is sell this information to anyone/ any company that comes to them with an email address.
In other words, if you sign up for an email newsletter the company that runs the site can quickly, and easily, learn almost everything about you that is available on the web… which in the age of social networking is quite a bit. It’s hard to see this not morphing into a scandel and/or mess someday…
Comments RSS
| TrackBack URI
Thanks for the writeup on Rapleaf and the good feedback. One thing we are helping people with is alerting them to public information about them that is available on the web. For example, if you have a social network profile that you forgot about and is now incorrect - rapleaf will find that info and help you manage it.
Email us anytime if you ever have questions.
Cheers!
–Dan
Rapleaf
Comment by Dan - September 2, 2007 3:48 pm
I found this alarming and made sure to remove myself from any Rapleaf searches… I still wonder how easily all those companies give out the email addresses. I mean Flickr, who needs to know which e-mail address for instance i signed up my flickr account with……?
Comment by Andre - September 4, 2007 10:36 am
Unfortunately Rapleaf appear to be linked to both upscoop and trustfuse. The latter sells your details onto ‘marketeers’ or spammers as we call them around here. A vile little site that has helped itself to my private personal information and sold it on. I have no idea how tany US privacy laws relate to it, but they have certainly broken the data protection laws in the UK where I reside.
Comment by Ruth Charles - September 6, 2007 6:25 am
Interesting collection of comments so far on a fairly complex issue… I wonder what the best way to deal with the issue is?
Comment by Denis - September 6, 2007 12:33 pm
Usenet - a set of machines which exchange clauses marked with one or is more universal-recognized labels, the named teleconferences (or “groups” for short). If the above definition Usenet seems uncertain, therefore it. It is almost impossible to draw a conclusion on all sites Usenet in any not trivial way. Usenet covers the governmental agencies, greater universities, high schools, firms of all sizes, house computers of all descriptions, etc.
Comment by Myusenet - January 31, 2008 7:45 pm
[...] in terms of printed news). Started reading the wikinomics blog and came across some scary stuff in one post about a new company called Rapleaf. There’s a great article in the NY Times today (which I think [...]
Pingback by Social networks? Meh, privacy shmivacy « janeporter.ca - April 9, 2008 3:25 pm