Is Rapportive violating our Privacy?
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- Created on Monday, 19 March 2012 09:31
I'm worried about the new trend in social aggregation software. I recently had an issue with the Google Mail plugin written by Rapportive.com somehow finding a connection to my Twitter account and serving it up in my colleague's email at work. Now, I use social media in a number of different ways. Twitter, which is not linked to my name or work, is used as an anonymous forum to be completely honest about how I see the world around me; as such it can be quite controversial at times. Facebook is the place where close friends and family congregate and I share photos of the kids and find out what people did on the weekend. My website is where I work on targeted information, like my writing or my hobbies. LinkedIn is where I keep my professional credentials up to date.
These channels have different uses and should stay seperate unless I choose to link them together.
Enter rapportive.com's 'rich contact profiles'. These guys clearly feel that your data is a free-for-all. In a way they're right, they're collecting public data aggregating it, and making it available in one place. What they're not doing is taking into account whether people want all their private channels mushed together and served up on a plate.
We've known for a long time that written content, things like email and instant messages, are not the best form of communication and can often lead to misunderstanding. I'd hate it if people I don't know suddenly started making spot judgements about me based on my last three tweets. If you still think I'm over-reacting then consider the next time you're looking for a job and are communicating with a recruiter. Let's hope every byte of your digital presence is absolutely squeaky clean.