FYI: MySpace to sell user data to 3rd party collection firms

Jstas

This is not a BS "group" or any rumor on MySpace. It's for real.

From ReadWriteWeb:

While Facebook & Twitter Sit on Sidelines, MySpace Jumps Into Bulk User Data Sales
Written by Marshall Kirkpatrick / March 12, 2010 10:30 AM

MySpace has taken a bold step and allowed a large quantity of bulk user data to be put up for sale on startup data marketplace InfoChimps. Data offered includes user playlists, mood updates, mobile updates, photos, vents, reviews, blog posts, names and zipcodes. Friend lists are not included. Remember, Facebook and Twitter may be the name of the game these days in tech circles, but MySpace still sees 1 billion user status updates posted every month. Those updates will now be available for bulk analysis.

This user data is intended for crunching by everyone from academic researchers to music industry information scientists. Will people buy the data and make interesting use of it? Will MySpace users be ok with that? Is this something Facebook and Twitter ought to do? The MySpace announcement raises a number of interesting questions.

The 22 sets of data being made available are cheap. Prices range from $10 for raw dumps from the MySpace API to $300 for everything broken out by latitude and longitude. Subsequently derived data sets can be put on sale by InfoChimps users as well, with a revenue split.

Analysis coming from the data could include things like music trends per zipcode, popular URLs being shared, etc.

MySpace is generally thought of as a social network on the decline, but if it is able to position itself as the place to do music still then its hundreds of millions of users could remain engaged. Will data scientists want this data, though? Time will tell, but MySpace has long done cooler things with data than competitors Facebook and Twitter and people haven't gotten terribly excited about it yet.

Bulk user data has tremendous analytical potential and both Facebook and Twitter have thrown the breaks on 3rd parties offering up their user data more than once. We covered InfoChimps' offering of bulk Twitter data in depth this Fall, but the marketplace quietly removed that data after Twitter asked them to "wait" for a second time.

In February we profiled Pete Warden (The Man Who Looked Into Facebook's Soul), a developer who planned on putting a huge pile of Facebook user data online for academic analysis. As we wrote in that article:

If what people call Web 2.0 was all about creating new technologies that made it easy for everyday people to publish their thoughts, social connections and activities, then the next stage of innovation online may be services like recommendations, self and group awareness, and other features made possible by software developers building on top of the huge mass of data that Web 2.0 made public.

Days later Facebook contacted Warden days later and asked him to hold off on release of that data as well. Last week Warden posted open source code for harvesting the same type of bulk user data from Google Profiles, so the game's not up yet, not by a long shot.

Why is this kind of big data interesting? This rational may be less applicable in the case of MySpace given its focus on music, or it may be more applicable given the allegedly poorer user demographics on the site compared to Facebook, but here's how I explained my interest in big social network data analysis in general, as part of a discussion about an excellent special report on big data in the Economist this month.

I think in big data there lies a lot of hidden patterns that represent both opportunities for action and for reflection. At RWW we're working on trying to find ways to mine data to find news first (we've got some interesting methods employed already) and personally, I think the world is an awfully unfair mess and I'm hoping that data analysis will help illuminate some of the hows and the whys. Like the way that real-estate redlining was exposed back in the day by cross referencing census data around racial demographics and housing loan data. That illuminated systematic discrimination against black families in applying for home loans in certain parts of town. So too I think we'll find a lot of undeniable proof of injustices and clues for how we might deal with them in big data today.

What will we see come out of MySpace's bulk data? What could we see come from Facebook and Twitter data if only they would let people get their hands on it? Time will tell.


http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/myspace_bulk_data.php

So if you have a MySpace account (looking at you, PolkAudio: http://www.myspace.com/polkaudioinc) and you don't want your stuff sold for others profit or used to spam/junk mail you, delete it now.

RuSsMaN

The Polk Audio page on the space has been dead since 2007. Sounds like they are selling data trends, not personal information, who cares?

Jstas

Nope, not just data trends.

"Data offered includes user playlists, mood updates, mobile updates, photos, vents, reviews, blog posts, names and zipcodes"

Your mobile updates, photos, "vents" (otherwise known as blog posts) are all also available for sale. MySpace wants to profit from selling your personal pictures and even your words, ideas and statements and you will never see one red cent of royalties. Add to that the fact that places like InfoChimps will be allowed to resell packaged data stripped from MySpace to other, 4th party concerns, and MySpace has turned you in to the village ****.

I doubt that they would be able to get past the corporate copyright stuff because lawyers would have a field day with it. But a corporate copyright doesn't protect you or your visage on MySpace and they seem to want to bend you way over the counter on this one.

Now I'm no conspiracy nut nor do I believe privacy exists anymore. But I have a real problem with other profiting at my expense and I see no compensation for the use of my intellectual property or my likeness. I'll be deleting my MySpace stuff when I get home. I don't need nor use it anymore so away it will go.

obieone

LOL. Y'all put your lives online, for the whole world to see, then complain about privacy issues?:p

Jstas

Who said it was about privacy?

And who said their entire life was online?

The issue is that those who use MySapce, their personal pictures, work and so on that they have chosen to share is going to be sold off and they will not reap any benefit, either financial or in recognition, from such actions. Furthermore, since MySpace now claims that they own the rights to said images and other works, somebody like RuSsMaN might find themselves in an ad for Summer's Eve one day. Or Polk Audio speakers could be used as fodder in an ad for Bose.

Granted extreme examples but there's two problems there. One, libel is a big concern. Would you want to be associated with a children's toy that lops their heads off in a grotesque manner all because your picture was on the in-store ads? Kinda sends the wrong idea about you. The second issue is profits. Where are your profits from a successful ad campaign featuring your work for Bose? If Bose makes $7B US off of your face, is it right that you are not entitled to any of that money because MySpace claimed rights and then sold it to a 3rd party who then packaged it up as "clip art" and sold it to yet another party?

No, that's not right. It has nothing to do with privacy. It has everything to do with your rights to not only your personal intellectual property but your own physical representation. This move by MySpace is exploitative and manipulative. It's honestly racketeering.

Jstas

You know what else is insulting? When short sighted individuals make the argument that "you post your entire life online and worry about privacy? LOL!". You know what? There are plenty of people out there who use a website such as MySpace or Facebook to maintain long distance relationships cheaply and easily. Before these social networking sites were available, to share pictures with a relative living several states away, you'd have to either mail them copies, wait for them to come for a visit or acquire and maintain your own webspace. Social networking sites make it simple and fast to share such things. To build your service to fill that need and attract millions of users to your service and then turn around and exploit them all for personal gain is unethical and immoral.

So if you think others are some how lesser than you for using such a service then, you're a sad individual and I hope that one day your family or friends do not have to move to an ungainly distance from you so that you do not have to fall in to this "heinous trap" to attack your privacy too.


Oh and there's no such thing as privacy. Privacy is security through obscurity. Privacy means that you, in the grand scheme of things, are so insignificant that nobody can be bothered to find out your name let alone anything about you. But trust me, if someone wanted to know all about you, the info is easily available and sometimes at minimal or even no cost!

MrNightly

Jstas wrote: »

You know what else is insulting? When short sighted individuals make the argument that "you post your entire life online and worry about privacy? LOL!". You know what? There are plenty of people out there who use a website such as MySpace or Facebook to maintain long distance relationships cheaply and easily. Before these social networking sites were available, to share pictures with a relative living several states away, you'd have to either mail them copies, wait for them to come for a visit or acquire and maintain your own webspace. Social networking sites make it simple and fast to share such things. To build your service to fill that need and attract millions of users to your service and then turn around and exploit them all for personal gain is unethical and immoral.

So if you think others are some how lesser than you for using such a service then, you're a sad individual and I hope that one day your family or friends do not have to move to an ungainly distance from you so that you do not have to fall in to this "heinous trap" to attack your privacy too.


Oh and there's no such thing as privacy. Privacy is security through obscurity. Privacy means that you, in the grand scheme of things, are so insignificant that nobody can be bothered to find out your name let alone anything about you. But trust me, if someone wanted to know all about you, the info is easily available and sometimes at minimal or even no cost!

Ya... 'cause Email was discovered at the same time as Facebook

bruss

Im in the who cares camp.

DollarDave

bruss wrote: »

Im in the who cares camp.

.

Agree.

nooshinjohn

Ditto.... I have all the online life I need right here.