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Agree completely. With that said, with many pieces of data, there are still limitations on their usage - public or not. A company can't use your public photo as

Agree completely. With that said, with many pieces of data, there are still limitations on their usage - public or not. A company can't use your public photo as their brand image without your involvement, for example (... or so i hope, hah). I do agree that there are uncontrollable outcomes that need to be understood - your viral example is a great one. But the viral outcome is inherently uncontrollable and fully decentralized. A study done by a select group of person(s) is controllable. Thoughts?

dimino 10y ago
I think there's a visceral reaction to this specific content, that "dating profile data" is different than "reddit comment history", despite being equally public, and both are probably similarly identifiable. It boils down to expectation vs. reality, right? It doesn't make sense to me to prohibit research institutions from pulling data if they can in a way that doesn't violate any usage agreements or user expectation. Do people get upset if OKCupid uses their data for their blog posts? What's the significant difference? To me, the action/lesson here is for OKCupid to implement something in their usage agreement preventing data scraping by end users (the bot the researcher wrote is probably not what OKC wants people doing). Then it becomes an ethical violation, but without it, I'd consider this data fair game.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > both are probably similarly identifiable OkCupid's data has to be identifiable because of the nature of their service. Reddit accounts don't need real data. I doubt they are similarly identifiable in the common case. However, this isn't very important. Regardless of how personally identifiable the data is, it is extremely rude to use it without specific consent. > What's the significant difference? They data was provided for dating purposes, not research. Context and intent matter. Maybe someone doesn't want to give data to that research, for any reason. Or maybe they do and would be willing to provide more data to the research if asked. > prohibit research institutions The same would apply to anybody using the data for a different purpose. The data was provided under a certain context, for a purpose. > pulling data if they can in a way that doesn't violate any usage agreements or user expectation. Why isn't asking permission the first step? Just take the data because nobody has legally prohibited that specific situation? That's how bad regulation happens. Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean it's a good idea. When enough people get pissed off about bad behavior, they tend to pass laws or regulations (which may or may not actually fix the problem). TL;DR - "This is why we can't have nice things."
  - dimino 10y ago
    Pulling what I wrote out of context isn't a very friendly way to debate online. :(

dimino 10y ago

I think there's a visceral reaction to this specific content, that "dating profile data" is different than "reddit comment history", despite being equally public, and both are probably similarly identifiable. It boils down to expectation vs. reality, right? It doesn't make sense to me to prohibit research institutions from pulling data if they can in a way that doesn't violate any usage agreements or user expectation. Do people get upset if OKCupid uses their data for their blog posts? What's the significant difference? To me, the action/lesson here is for OKCupid to implement something in their usage agreement preventing data scraping by end users (the bot the researcher wrote is probably not what OKC wants people doing). Then it becomes an ethical violation, but without it, I'd consider this data fair game.

pdkl95 10y ago
> both are probably similarly identifiable OkCupid's data has to be identifiable because of the nature of their service. Reddit accounts don't need real data. I doubt they are similarly identifiable in the common case. However, this isn't very important. Regardless of how personally identifiable the data is, it is extremely rude to use it without specific consent. > What's the significant difference? They data was provided for dating purposes, not research. Context and intent matter. Maybe someone doesn't want to give data to that research, for any reason. Or maybe they do and would be willing to provide more data to the research if asked. > prohibit research institutions The same would apply to anybody using the data for a different purpose. The data was provided under a certain context, for a purpose. > pulling data if they can in a way that doesn't violate any usage agreements or user expectation. Why isn't asking permission the first step? Just take the data because nobody has legally prohibited that specific situation? That's how bad regulation happens. Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean it's a good idea. When enough people get pissed off about bad behavior, they tend to pass laws or regulations (which may or may not actually fix the problem). TL;DR - "This is why we can't have nice things."
- dimino 10y ago
  Pulling what I wrote out of context isn't a very friendly way to debate online. :(