Dear Facebook, Huffington Post Wants Your Action

via tomorrowstarted.com

From news.discovery.com:

“Now that Facebook has gone public and is struggling to get a steady valuation, the company is looking to find new ways to make its money and prove its worth to investors.

One option Facebook is exploring is enhancing ad sales by more effective targeting of increasingly specific demographic groups, using location data from mobile devices and information culled from the site.

The company will be targeting members’ information more closely, and expects personal data-sharing to double every decade.”

While not on the same scale as wikiLeaker Julian Assange, or NSA leaker Edward Snowden, the clouds are gathering.

Will Mark Zuckerberg’s name ever be mentioned in the same breath as theirs? Will the Huffington Post?

Beginning this year, 2014, if you comment on articles in Huffington Post you must verify your account.

From the Post:

“To promote more civil discussion and accountability in the Huffington Post community, beginning today, all of those who wish to make a comment will be asked to verify their HuffPost account. For further info and access to the verification process, click to continue.”

One click gets this:

“Connect your verified Facebook account

“The Huffington Post will receive the following info: your public profile, friend list, email address, News Feed, birthday, interests, current city, personal description and likes.”

Probably nothing to worry about? It’s not like you’re giving fingerprints and a DNA sample to anonymous online ventures.

This Portland boomer blogger isn’t getting fitted for an aluminum foil hat, digging a shelter in his crawl space, or looking out the peep hole for Big Brother. But it doesn’t seem like a good idea to snag data this way.

Facebook gets the info because we volunteer it. HuffPo gets it because…they can.

Rest assured, if you send private info to boomerpdx I won’t share. Not because I don’t want to boost my sponsorships, ad money, or just revel in the power of email. I’ll keep it simple: data mining as a condition of participation is not the right thing to do.

Note to baby boomers: If you’re not a target for targeted ads on Facebook, then they’re missing the big boat.