Crush Meme Continued, part II

[brynndragon]

First, the perfect responce to the meme can be found here (thanks go to onetwolittleb).

Second, I noticed that the gender indicator thingie has no effect on either the data recieved or any part of the readout. You'd think he'd do even some minor altering (like a color difference) so it's not so fucking obvious he's just collecting more data. My solution? Fuck with the data by entering yourself in as both genders, if you've already done it. Hell, you could do a DoS-style thing with it; it would be oddly approrpiate. . .

Comments

[kadath.livejournal.com]

I was curious about the gender thing, too. Near as I can tell, all it affects is a pronoun in the results listing (and all the extra data he's collecting to see how he can get more questionable money. Possibly he's doing a limited demographic profile to see which gender is more willing to shell out for gossip.) I'd say this clown is skating on the edge of a DoS as it is...it'll just take a couple of days for the skr1pt k1ddi3z to get organized.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Yay! Fuck with his data! An excellent idea.

I think I'm going to go in and report that I have a horrible crush on sompos, neilgaiman, buffyphilosophy, oh, and while I'm at it, Mmetahacker. That should skew the data a bit...

Defense through obfuscation! Make random purchases now, before your credit card sells your purchase patterns! (oh, wait, too late on that one). Call random people before your phone company sells your calling profile (wait, too late on that one too)!

[macropixi.livejournal.com]

I highly doubt what he is doing is even legal... I wish I knew more about the law to find out... any ljers out there with legal knowledge wanna fill us in?

I wanna know if its possible to enter into a class action lawsuit against him...

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

what? why the hell? he betrayed trust that you never gave him? because he tantalized you and now he's likely to get $4 out of you?

I'm pretty sure what he did is legal. I'm not even all that bothered by the moral implications of it. If I say, "Hi, what's your name?", I don't expect you to never tell anyone else my name ever. This isn't like your secret diary under your pillow: the internet is full of people you don't know (hi! I'm not usually like this, just tired of this thread. Perhaps we can have a decent conversation some other time -- I'm more pleasant most of the time, which brynndragon would hopefully vouch for), and yet everyone expects them to act better than best friends, keeping secrets that they give freely.

I guess I just don't understand why everyone's so upset. I'm all for being subversive; but fooling yourself that random people aren't going to abuse personal information you give out randomly is naive. Hopeful, even to be desired, but naive.

Bleargh.

[macropixi.livejournal.com]

What pisses me off is the fact that nowhere on the original form does it say that this info is going to be sold to other people. and yes I did go back and look. The fact that he is SELLING the info is what I object to. Selling it without expressly asking permission. Selling it without compensating the people he collected the info from. I know that banks and places like that are required to disclose what they do with your personal info. That's why I'm fairly certain that its not legal. The fact that on the FAQ he STATES that he won't remove your info unless you pay him pisses me off. He bloody well admits that its blackmail.

"I want my answers removed from this or the last quiz.
Hmmmm... I'd do it, but I'd have to charge a fee for my time. That could be seen as blackmail or extortion, so I guess you're SOL."

this pisses me off and makes me question the legality of it. And that one quote is why I personally would be willing to take him to court.

I wouldn't pay him for my "secret crush" info anyway. Its not worth it. Yeah I'll admit to being curious. But I don't need to know. I know who loves me.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

"...banks and places like that are required to disclose what they do with your personal info..."

Hmm. On that front, you may be right.

Go-go-tertiary-sources!

Cringley writes, a few weeks ago, "One thing we can do is lay claim to our personal information. Ironically, the groundwork for this has already been laid by several Supreme Court decisions. One of them declared personal information to be an "article of commerce" — that is, property. If it's property, it has an owner: you. And that means the Fifth and Fourth Amendments come into play."

If this is right, and you can argue that your crushes are your personal information (questionable; probably would come down to whose lawyer argued better, unfortunately) then you'd have a definite case for a suit.