Geek News and Musings

So, just last week we noted that Netflix had gotten itself into a bit of hot water for its Netflix prize contest, which used real user data — which was supposed to be anonymous. Unfortunately, as with most such data, it wasn’t really anonymous, and that’s illegal — especially when it comes to movie rental data. Because of all that, Netflix has also canceled plans for a follow-up prize competition. However, just as that happened, reports were coming out that MySpace has begun selling user data. Among the data up for sale? “User playlists, mood updates, mobile updates, photos, vents, reviews, blog posts, names and zipcodes. You would have to imagine that at least some people might not be happy about that.

Now, to be fair, the info you provide MySpace is public — while the info you provide Netflix is not. However, you could certainly see some people not being particularly thrilled that MySpace is now directly selling that information, and you have to imagine that someone will file a lawsuit before too long over this data.

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