Don't Trust Your Friends. Re: LJ Crush Meme

[nfotxn]

I'd like to thank Anonymous Consulting for finally putting the last stab in LJ memes for me. I think it's totally awesome that internet marketing is moving from mildly annoying pop-up ads and banners to insidious viral marketing.

Of course nobody cares because the effect of this kind of market research has no immediate visible effect. Infact I would agree that it's "cheap, effective, infectious and not totally annoying" in it's current state. However I'm sure once this consulting firm gets larger clients the demands to invade people's privacy and regard people's blogs and journals only as potential honey pots to be raided. My trust was already breached when what seems liked an inoccuous Meme was actually the collection of data to be sold back to me at $4/hit.

Sorry, I ain't buying.

It's not totally unlike Tele-marketing really. And the result of supporting viral blog marketing only supports the collection and co-relation of personal data to better pigeon-hole you as a potential source of revenue. Again there's no immediate result from taking a silly quiz that shows how many boys and girls have crushes/ex-crushes on you. But how long before GM, Ford or VW start asking you how many cars you own or when you plan to buy in said quiz? Not long I figure until a plethora of data about you is legally in their databases co-related to your LJ username.

I don't have any mis-conceptions that it's preventable but it's gonna really suck having to wait another 10-15 years before legislation preventing spam and viral marketing from effecting my life is put into order. I mean it's only now in 2003 that there's a no-call list in the USA and it wasn't until the 90s (I believe) that Canada got harassment protection from telemarketers.

Comments

agreed

[daninca.livejournal.com]

another annoying thing about it. I took it but I didn't post it because I really didn't want anybody to know I had a crush on them, but now they can find out for $4.

No more memes for me!

Re: agreed

[loganbeary.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but "no more memes" is a meme in itself. :o)

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you've read Dave Barry's Oct 5 article about the ATA and the no-call list, it's great, and actually irritated telemarketers just the same way they've annoyed people. Hee.

[clauditorium.livejournal.com]

I love Dave Barry! Where can I find this article?

[etherlad.livejournal.com]

The first is here (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry/6649728.htm), the second is here (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry/6934584.htm).

[clauditorium.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

Eek! I forgot to put the link, didn't I. Here it is!
Dave Barry's article Enjoy :)

[clauditorium.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

Welcome!
I laughed when I read it, and just thought 'serves em right' :)

[clauditorium.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I felt like applauding!

[chrisglass.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I totally lied when i filled out that questionnaire.

I think that word meme is being abused, by the way.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Meme is so abused on the internet Amnesty International is getting involved.

Keep up the good work screwin' shit up. FUCK THE SYSTEM YARW$R!"£$!!

[lostncove.livejournal.com]

*applause* I couldn't be more in your boat on this one.

And just to add to the bitching--the way I interpreted "ex-crush" was complicated when I filled it out. Some people turned brotherly, some people I got over the crush, etc. None of it was meant maliciously, yet I'm not going to be able to explain that to someone who gets "ex-crush" from me for four bucks.

Lesson learned. I'm not going there again.

Europe has already banned this, I think

[bigmacbear]

I read somewhere that this kind of practice is already considered illegal under European data-protection law.

Googling "European data-protection law" led me to the web site of the European Parliament and its page on data protection law.

Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament can be read from this page, and this directive specifies, in part (emphasis added):

Article 6
1. Member States shall provide that personal data must be:
(a) processed fairly and lawfully;
(b) collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a way incompatible with those purposes. Further processing of data for historical, statistical or scientific purposes shall not be considered as incompatible provided that Member States provide appropriate safeguards;

It goes on to state that Member States are required to enact legislation conforming to this Directive, and there's even a blurb linked from the page above stating that five countries (France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland) are being taken to court for not doing so.

I don't think I took the crush meme myself, and if I had, it would have been interesting to see if they had any legal mumbo-jumbo about the purpose for which the data were to be used. That could get them around this issue were it to pop up here in the good ol' U.S. of A.

I suspect, though, that comprehensive data-protection legislation such as this hasn't got the proverbial snowball's chance in Hell here; we'll probably be stuck with piecemeal sorts of things like protection of medical records and video rentals (I shit you not, there is a Federal law on that topic, but whether it has been gutted by the so-called Patriot Act ia another matter).

I give Canada a much better chance of passing something like this though. Whether that is good or bad depends on your occupation, much as the current flap over telemarketing does.

[xkot.livejournal.com]

Heh... I'm really screwed because when I messed with the quiz I was suspicious of it to begin with, so I click a few names more or less randomly to see what it was like. Now those folks can pay $4 to find out that I have a crush on them, when actually it was probably random and I don't have any feelings for them. I guess that's what anyone lame enough to pay the money deserves :)