8 ms·

You outsourced personal data to mechanical turk ? Can I have the name of your company ?

by sametmax 8y ago

jhall1468 8y ago
Addresses are public data.
- sametmax 8y ago
  It doesn't seem to be just addresses since they are extracted from something.
  - jamra 8y ago
    This comment makes no sense to me and it seems like you’re pushing this point with a lot of force. Of course there is context in how the addresses are used. But the reviewers may not have had access to the context. Since addresses are public data, the question remains.. what is the harm?
    - Harvey-Specter 8y ago
      I've mentioned this in a few places but it seems to be ignored: The account that posts the addresses is assosciated with some company. If that company isn't just 'Generic Consulting Company' then there is some context derived from the account name. ie: This account is owned by 'XXX Toys', and they're asking me to clean up this address information. I guess someone at this address ordered some adult toys.
      - chx 8y ago
        > If that company isn't just 'Generic Consulting Company' But it is. I am just a small consulting company here, working for various clients and turkers have no idea who I work for, especially because most of the time even that is under NDA. (And as I noted above, this was a B2B sort of thing, so people got themselves into a tizzy over the addresses of businesses all around the world.)
      - jhall1468 8y ago
        You are making a ton of assumptions with absolutely zero evidence and using that as the basis of an argument for attacking the company. Fortunately he replied stating that it is a small consulting company, which is exactly what you'd expect, thus making your entire argument moot.
        Harvey-Specter 8y ago
        I'm not making any assumptions about anything, and I'm not attacking any company. I'm addressing the point that jamra made above, which is a general commenting stating that publishing a list of addresses is harmless because addresses are public data.
robryan 8y ago
Is address data without a name/email or phone number to link it to really personal data?
- sametmax 8y ago
  They extracted it, so it means it was in a context. Address + context is very much personal. Also I note that the comment author prefers not to answer.
  - letsgetphysITal 8y ago
    I don't know. If it's just an address, you can get it from Google Maps Street View. To find out who is in a specific address is what makes it personal.
    - michaelt 8y ago
      A list of addresses usually has some context* - the combination of the address and the context could be personal. For example, a list of customers' addresses for a sex toy shop would be personal even though it was a subset of the non-personal list of all addresses. *unless it's just a list of every address in the country, obviously
      - letsgetphysITal 8y ago
        I disagree. The turkers don't need to know that they're extracting the "country, state (or equivalent), city," from a list of adult store customers in order to extract that data. Sharing the context is superfluous to requirements in this instance, so likely is not included in the task mandate.
        Harvey-Specter 8y ago
        That information wouldn't be directly included, but some account has to post the hit. That account is either associated with some company or some person who works for some company.
yesiamyourdad 8y ago
I know of one application that at least used to use MTurk to validate OCR translation of business cards. I'd guess that if you hand out a business card, you don't have an expectation that the data on there would be private. I played with MTurk as a worker about 6 years ago. Lots of the better paying jobs were either doing audio transcriptions or quality checking OCR jobs.

You outsourced personal data to mechanical turk ? Can I have the name of your company ?

jhall1468 8y ago

Addresses are public data.

sametmax 8y ago
It doesn't seem to be just addresses since they are extracted from something.
- jamra 8y ago
  This comment makes no sense to me and it seems like you’re pushing this point with a lot of force. Of course there is context in how the addresses are used. But the reviewers may not have had access to the context. Since addresses are public data, the question remains.. what is the harm?
  - Harvey-Specter 8y ago
    I've mentioned this in a few places but it seems to be ignored: The account that posts the addresses is assosciated with some company. If that company isn't just 'Generic Consulting Company' then there is some context derived from the account name. ie: This account is owned by 'XXX Toys', and they're asking me to clean up this address information. I guess someone at this address ordered some adult toys.
    - chx 8y ago
      > If that company isn't just 'Generic Consulting Company' But it is. I am just a small consulting company here, working for various clients and turkers have no idea who I work for, especially because most of the time even that is under NDA. (And as I noted above, this was a B2B sort of thing, so people got themselves into a tizzy over the addresses of businesses all around the world.)
    - jhall1468 8y ago
      You are making a ton of assumptions with absolutely zero evidence and using that as the basis of an argument for attacking the company. Fortunately he replied stating that it is a small consulting company, which is exactly what you'd expect, thus making your entire argument moot.
      - Harvey-Specter 8y ago
        I'm not making any assumptions about anything, and I'm not attacking any company. I'm addressing the point that jamra made above, which is a general commenting stating that publishing a list of addresses is harmless because addresses are public data.

robryan 8y ago

Is address data without a name/email or phone number to link it to really personal data?

sametmax 8y ago
They extracted it, so it means it was in a context. Address + context is very much personal. Also I note that the comment author prefers not to answer.
- letsgetphysITal 8y ago
  I don't know. If it's just an address, you can get it from Google Maps Street View. To find out who is in a specific address is what makes it personal.
  - michaelt 8y ago
    A list of addresses usually has some context* - the combination of the address and the context could be personal. For example, a list of customers' addresses for a sex toy shop would be personal even though it was a subset of the non-personal list of all addresses. *unless it's just a list of every address in the country, obviously
    - letsgetphysITal 8y ago
      I disagree. The turkers don't need to know that they're extracting the "country, state (or equivalent), city," from a list of adult store customers in order to extract that data. Sharing the context is superfluous to requirements in this instance, so likely is not included in the task mandate.
      - Harvey-Specter 8y ago
        That information wouldn't be directly included, but some account has to post the hit. That account is either associated with some company or some person who works for some company.

yesiamyourdad 8y ago

I know of one application that at least used to use MTurk to validate OCR translation of business cards. I'd guess that if you hand out a business card, you don't have an expectation that the data on there would be private. I played with MTurk as a worker about 6 years ago. Lots of the better paying jobs were either doing audio transcriptions or quality checking OCR jobs.