[Geowanking] MS local.live.com & privacy (lack of)

[Jeremy Irish]

>I think we should create an independent country state that is not part of 
> the physical world, but (using distributed storage and computing) allows 
> information to be so dispersely stored that it is actually nowhere, but 
> everwhere and therefore in its own state.  Follow? :)  

Heh, no. But it does seem like apples and oranges when it comes to comparing medical records and mapping an IP address to a location. Local.live.com didn't ask you whether your herpes problem was acting up again. The White Pages have been showing people's addresses for quite a while now.

(not the actual you. I didn't look it up in any spooky database)

Mike -

> The detail about their IP location database, finding me, despite my 
> physical obscurity is merely irritating on top of the obviously false 
> claim that my "privacy is important."  Clearly they have no problems about
> purchasing an IP>location database from someone else who obviously 
> datamined my actual address  from some website where I registered for
> something- who sold the data to Microsoft-without my permission.

I'm mostly playing Devil's advocate here, but it isn't exactly like they told you anything you didn't know already nor did they share your information with anyone else. You are here is pretty benign. Staying away from the assumptions about how your location was gathered (which could have come from anywhere), aggregated data is a product of the 21st century. All the hip kids are doing it.

I hate it that it is illegal for me to register to vote using a post office address, and my home purchasing records are online for anyone to look up. Granted, blaming Microsoft for the woes of Information Technology is a nice fat target to carp at, but it doesn't seem especially fair.

By the way, your secret is safe with me, but who knows what may show up on your Wikipedia entry tomorrow? Welcome to the Information Age.