MySpace Selling User Data

From PC World: Social networking just became a little riskier to your privacy. MySpace has begun to sell user data to third parties ranging from academics and analysts to marketers.

The data will include any activity or information that is attached to an account. That includes blog posts, location, photos, reviews, and status updates-among others. InfoChimps, an Austin, Texas company that collects and sells structured data, is one of the firms that is selling the data.

Of course, MySpace is perfectly within its right to do that, because it legally owns the data and the server logs. Users waive their right to privacy in exchange for free Web hosting and access to its social features. "Free" comes at a cost. Here's snippet of what "they" know about you.

This is exactly the type of scenario that Eben Moglen, a Columbia University law professor and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center warned of at a seminar about privacy in cloud computing last month. Except I wouldn't have imagined that MySpace would be one of the really aggressive purveyors of personal data. News Corporation must be regretting that it forked over $580 million to acquire MySpace in 2005.

In his talk, Moglen advocated for the development of peer-to-peer social networks where users retain ownership of their data. His suggestion is looking more appealing (and prophetic) now that one of the biggest names in social networking has sold out its users' privacy.

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