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IIRC, this data was all simply scraped from profiles, not socially engineered out of people. While it might be morally grey, you need to half expect stuff like

by reustle 10y ago

IIRC, this data was all simply scraped from profiles, not socially engineered out of people. While it might be morally grey, you need to half expect stuff like this will happen when you post it. If you don't want things like your sexual preferences to be public, then don't put them on a free public dating website profile.

ubernostrum 10y ago
If you didn't want the bank to let someone else have all your money, you shouldn't have put your money in a publicly-accessible bank anyone could visit. And you certainly shouldn't have trusted the bank's promises that it would impose rules on who can access money and how.
- meshko 10y ago
  Terrible analogy. You are putting your money into the bank in order for the bank to preserve the money and perhaps pay you interest on it. When you use a website like OKCupid, you are getting a service from them in exchange for ability to mine a sell personal information about yourself. And, amazingly, this will lead to... people getting your personal information. The lack of public understanding of this is precisely what makes a dump like this ethically gray. Sure, it's bad that people's information leaked, but at least it wasn't for profit and overall public is better off because more people understand how data works.
swang 10y ago
no you are incorrect about this. there is data that is only available if you are a member of the site and answer questions on the site. for example if a question asks you, "would you date a smoker?" if you answer you can post it so other members can see what you answered to gauge whether what you picked matches with what they liked. what this guy did was go through all the questions and answer them at random then scraped the data that was available only to actual members of the site. as for profiles being "public". they can be "public" in the sense that you can go to a url and see their profile, yes. but most people set it so only people who have signed up can see them. so by doing this he most likely violated the TOS of the site and scraped the data without permission. edit: it is not as though it was public, the guy who scraped the data made effort to log into an account, answer all the questions and then _scrape_ the data. it's not like that data is plainly visible if you go to someone's profile.

by reustle 10y ago

ubernostrum 10y ago

If you didn't want the bank to let someone else have all your money, you shouldn't have put your money in a publicly-accessible bank anyone could visit. And you certainly shouldn't have trusted the bank's promises that it would impose rules on who can access money and how.

meshko 10y ago
Terrible analogy. You are putting your money into the bank in order for the bank to preserve the money and perhaps pay you interest on it. When you use a website like OKCupid, you are getting a service from them in exchange for ability to mine a sell personal information about yourself. And, amazingly, this will lead to... people getting your personal information. The lack of public understanding of this is precisely what makes a dump like this ethically gray. Sure, it's bad that people's information leaked, but at least it wasn't for profit and overall public is better off because more people understand how data works.

swang 10y ago

no you are incorrect about this. there is data that is only available if you are a member of the site and answer questions on the site. for example if a question asks you, "would you date a smoker?" if you answer you can post it so other members can see what you answered to gauge whether what you picked matches with what they liked. what this guy did was go through all the questions and answer them at random then scraped the data that was available only to actual members of the site. as for profiles being "public". they can be "public" in the sense that you can go to a url and see their profile, yes. but most people set it so only people who have signed up can see them. so by doing this he most likely violated the TOS of the site and scraped the data without permission. edit: it is not as though it was public, the guy who scraped the data made effort to log into an account, answer all the questions and then _scrape_ the data. it's not like that data is plainly visible if you go to someone's profile.