Spock is a social networking / people search site which allows anyone to edit anybody else's information. If you find that you've been added to the site, you can claim your profile and change your information. However, there is no guarantee that you'll notice you've been added to the site. I only realised I'd been listed there when I received an email alerting me to the fact that I had a profile there.
I discovered a page about myself that looked a lot like most other social networking profiles. It also looked like the individual in question - me - had created it. I found such information as my photograph, the breed of dog I own, and which high school I'd attended in New Zealand.
Luckily, I could "claim" the profile by logging in with my LinkedIn credentials. I thought I had successfully deleted all the information the person had added about me, only to revisit the site today and find that none of it was really gone. It was just included as "news" about me. If someone isn't alerted to their presence at the site, they might not come across the listing until it shows up in a search engine result.
The web is not designed to let individuals have complete control over what appears in search engine results for their names. Reputation management services exist because we don't have control over search results. However, something strikes me as wrong about this service. The thing that really bothers me is that when a profile is claimed, one still has very little control over its contents. I can't really get rid of any information and I have to request that the page be removed.
Spock's Help page explains how users can flag content as inappropriate. However, if you don't know you've been added to their database, there is no way to control the information. Secondly, claiming your profile isn't necessarily instantaneous. If you don't have an email address or social networking account, you have to request access to your profile via the site's "quality assurance team." That's the problem with allowing a social network to act as a wiki: anyone can edit it, so they need a quality assurance team in place to protect you from claiming to be you when you are actually someone else.
Spock has a setting to make one's profile private and stop strangers from changing its information. However, it appears to be broken. This is what happened when I tried to privatise my page. I certainly had not attempted to change its settings more than once in seven days.
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What do you think? Is this just part of the Internet and something we have to get used to? Or is it overstepping the mark to allow strangers to edit personal information about people, and then not really give those people a quick way to remove the information that they don't appreciate? I believe that people search will become more of an issue in the future, as it becomes more easy to track people's actions online. Most of us who have an online presence are aware of what we put out there, and many of us are aware of what can be indexed. People search needn't necessitate a gross compromise in privacy, but sites like Spock need to make it easier for individuals to control what appears attached to their names.
Yeah, that's just creepy. You half expect there to be a "rate Jane's worth" option. "Rate Jane as a person based on our twelve criteria - see how she stacks up against comparable humans!"
I think I'm going to start AssholeReport.com - anyone who creates a site like this gets a profile and a write-up. They have to pay me an exhorbitant and endless monthly payment to turn their profile off.
I believe this is akin to bringing the nonsense full-circle. I like it.
ahhh... that domain is taken!
I love it that you checked!
Haha - yeah I checked right away. They're all taken. Except for www.clownpenis.fart
Great post, as usual, Jane.
This kind of site does bother me. Sure, someone could put up a blog post saying that I'm a puppy-kicking arsonist who spends way too much time at the David Cook thread at TWoP. (Oops, that last part is really true).
But, it doesn't have the aura of being "official" information the way it would at a site like this. If you didn't know how this site worked, you'd assume that the information there had been entered in by the person themselves.
Just as Danny said in his last (and very helpful) post, potential employers will be trolling the internet looking for info about you and this sort of site could really sabotage your chances if someone decides to mess with your profile.
Note to self: mention David Cook in a comment, watch the thumbs-up roll in!
Either that or people have a surprisingly positive reaction to puppy-kicking arsonists ;)
You're correct Jane. It was the puppy-kicking arsonist comment. I slightly hovered on the thumbs up only because of the DC mention. However, the strength of "PKA" won out in the end. Very nice Lorisa. Keep that warped thinking going.
Your post really got my attention. Controlling your identity online seems to be moving beyond your control!
I am a bit tired, Jane, of so many start-ups just trying to earn money without any concerns about threats to people's identity.The same with Facebook and their Beacon solution that used to track your behaviour even if you left the site.
Spocks look to me as another Web 2.0 BETA solution. Just look at this profile: https://www.spock.com/Jeff-Robbin Why there is Steve Jobs' photo? It is so obvious that these profiles will be abused.
Remember when www.jigsaw.com got a very bad review on TechCrunch? If you are in the Internet business you should earn visitors and do it fair respecting people's identity as this is becoming a very big issue in the Internet.
Unfortunately, I think it is just part of the Internet and something folks have to get used to. You have every right to be upset about what was done to you but the individual behavior of the person who did this is at fault. Spock was only the vehicle for somebody to act inappropriately and if it didn't happen at Spock, it would have likely happened elsewhere.
If you want the page to be deleted quick, I would think an extreme amount of profanity on the page would speed up the process.
Ha! I hadn't thought of that! That's an certainly an interesting idea :)
I disagree (about the fact that it might have happened elsewhere and therefore doesn't mean anything).
Whilst it certainly could have happened anywhere on the web (I could go into a forum now and start blabbing about Jane's love of energy drinks - ooh, there's tomorrow's entertainment sorted) but those other places weren't actively encouraging others to create content anout Jane. And if anything like this ended up in court, I think that could be an important difference.
I think you've managed to pinpoint what I spent a lot of time trying to get at - this site actually encourages people to add content about others, as well as not allowing them to effectively remove it. That seems to be the line-crosser.
Todd - that's a brilliant idea. Can you imagine a reputation management company suggesting to its client that the best way to handle this is to make it so extreme that:
1) Nobobdy will believe it. They'll know it's spam.
2) As you suggested - it will be taken down in a hearbeat.
Absolutely brilliant.
Sean,
What makes you think that vile and extreme content gets removed immediately? You must not read the comments on political blogs regularly. ;)
Yes, it's creepy.
Yes, it's a massive class-action libel lawsuit waiting to happen.
Unfortunately, I know way, WAY too many people who have had to deal with internet predators, vengeful exes, hostile dumped mistresses/boy toys, or just destructive, vindictive people who know them in real life, who would simply have a FIELD day with this site.
Let's throw out the most likely "for instance." You have a bad breakup. Your ex discovers the wonder that is Spock.com. S/He knows enough true personal information about you to make a really, REALLY bad mess of your profile. The mind reels.
Why make it so easy for others to post patently untrue or unprovable things about you, and so difficult for you to own/edit your own profile?
I felt the need to search for myself as soon as I read this and discovered that I too have been spock-ed. Here's the thing that really bothers me:
I have my MySpace profile set to private, and I'm not one of those people that just say "yes" to all friend requests even if I don't know you. There is information on this spock page that you can't typically see on my MySpace page unless you are my friend. Ditto for my husband's profile. How did they get that information? I find that highly disturbing...
I did sign up for the RSS feed of "my" news though, so I can at least keep an eye on it. When I have a little more time I'll look into removing the profile all together...
Also - I don't like that in order to claim it I have to type in my MySpace password...
Not to mention that there are actually multiple accounts for me - one in my maiden name and one in my married. I notice there's nothing in there from Facebook, which I also have set to private...
In an age where privacy should be protected, and with this type of site being so easily open to abuse and cyber-stalking type of activity, they clearly need to have an easy means to remove any questioned profile. There are some areas where user-edited is not a responsible approach.
As a point of reference, I did find an article from awhile ago on Spock at Oreilly. https://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/04/why-im-so-excited-about-spock.html
I sympathise with you there Jane. It is quite disturbing to find yourself on any database that you didn't consent to, especially one that is publically searchable.
But to play devil's advocate, and I do so at the risk of a few thumbs-down, if the technology exists to achieve something, and the contributing data is available on other publically searchable databases such as Linkedin, Myspace or even Whois, then it seems a little unfair to blame a service that acts to pull all this data together in one place... unless of course they are publishing information that should not be in the public domain.
Is the main objection that they have developed distinct profiles, rather just a list of "Jane Copland" results?
Or that their exclusion functions seem to be a scam?
I'm perfectly okay with the site aggregating readily available information, but this site allows people to add anything they like - true or not - about an individual and doesn't alert the individual to the changes. The information that was added about me was true, but I am perfectly sure people had added false information about others.
Also, I'm not entirely sure why the person who edited my profile thought it was necessary to list my high school, which they appeared to have gotten from a college sports profile. And the breed of dog I have? Is that really relevant? I found that creepy, even though it was accurate. The notion that they could add inaccurate information and that I couldn't easily get rid of it was what really worried me.
Ah right, that makes more sense. So it's more or less a wiki-style free- for-all, where the site owners are unlikely to take responsibility for libel and incorrect information - I guess that is very different... and with one small hop I'm on your side of the fence about this.
I'd be really interested to hear what SarahBird has to add regarding the legal issues surrounding this - especially as it has the potential to cause problems for careers, relationships, whatever through mis-information (innocent or even worse, malicious slander).
I mention that it's like a wiki in the post ;)
It turns out that my profile is still there, even after I flagged it yesterday. I don't know how long they'll take to contact me or delete it. I won't be waiting up for the email though!
Agreed - it is definitely creepy.
What I want to know: what purpose or benefit does it serve to allow someone to add this information about you? The fact that this guy came along and decided he knew enough about your professional and personal life to add these details (which are, granted, available at other public websites) is disturbing.
In what way did this benefit him? Was it simply to have his name attached to your profile and thereby gain some undeserved credit or fame by association (read: spam)?
I think any site that allows users to create/modify profiles of other people, let alone unbeknownst to them, is crossing a line that ought not be crossed.
Is it illegal? Perhaps not. But SHAME - SHAME ON YOU!
I am torn between acknowledging that all that information was available around the web and wondering how and why he got it all together. I don't think that sites like this should promote that sort of behaviour, which they obviously seem to do.
It raises the question in my mind as to how great it is to be open about your personal life at social websites.
Sure, there are benefits to being transparent in some regard, but this has made me acutely aware of what is listed on my own social profiles. I guess those pics of me wearing the American Flag as a diaper will have to come down! j/k
I suppose all we can do is be very particular about what we post online for all to see.
Spock.com hasn't created that problem so much as highlighted it. Either way, I don't think it's a site I would brag about having created.
Certainly. I'll be changing how I structure my social profiles and who I share information with.
Who knows. Maybe it's a she and she wanted to get back at him, so she created a profile using his picture and stalked your profile to make it look like he was stalking you, knowing that you're a prominent social media blogger and would write a post outing him as a creep. Now - that's creepy.
Maybe it was Lisa Barone playing a trick on you...Maybe it was Ciaran. The plot thickens... You just never know.
Information like where you went to high school really raises more of the privacy and security concerns. I've seen this as a question on sites for password reminders, like mother's maiden name. Having this information so readily available then makes it where your access/data on other sites then become insecure.
That information is available on my unviersity sport profile, which is there for legitimate reasons (although in today's climate, colleges may consider changing how much information they include). It just raises my eyebrows when someone takes the time to get that sort of thing together in one place.
That's kind of creepy. What kind of person creates a profile of someone else? Fans? Stalkers? Character assasins?
What do the site owners hope to achieve with this - other than make money?
I am just now catching up with all of this. I find it very disturbing. I searched myself and found there were 2 profiles of my name on that site. One is a dental hygiene student living in Milwaukee who doesn't want kids. I am sure that my kids will be pleased to learn that. Then the other option does have correct information about me scraped from linkedin and even seomoz and other places but it is all mixed in with another version yet who a Lutheran minister, and yet still another version that went to Upper Iowa University. I did grown up in Iowa but that is not me. It also has a few random websites that I worked on in some capacity. Why would anyone every want anything to do with that site? The information collected is garbage without proper filtering. Combined with the scary ability of anyone to edit the content as they desire makes it a very untrustworthy and dangerous source. What if one of the other versions of my name decides to edit the profile and people think it is me? And what should I do about it? I will watch to see what happens with efforts to update or remove information on this site. Perhaps it is best ignored and it will die from lack of attention assuming no traffic equals no revenue and results in shut down website.
Your experience with this site, along with Erin-TTT's and rishil's, is more disturbing than what happened to me. It's very interesting that information about you has been confused with others and included on the same page. Speaks volumes about the accuracy of the site, or lack thereof. All the information about me is accurate and I was simply hypothesising about how others may see inaccurate information added. It interests me that so many people see private and inaccurate information posted. And perhaps Sandra Hancock, above, may take heed of this.
This site has a nice "Here's Johnny. I'm Right Behind You", from The Shining - feel to it.
and for those who haven't seen the movie. It's a must.
Nice post Jane. Dead on.
First off, i'll state my thoughts. I think this site does cross the line and i despise it.
The thing is though, it might be a good thing for the web in the long run. Ok, i know that seems like a really silly thing to say but this is just a thought. i'll try and explain myself.
We all say the web is young but we, as people who use it, are even greener. Amid the Web2.0 love affair we are also going through or starting to go through a quiet trust awakening. When i say we, i mean the relatively newly attracted masses, not web veterans who might well have gone through this already. People are posting all sorts of personal information about themselves that will, inevitably, come back to bite them in the future. As simple social beings, we are used to 'moving on' and allowing our past to fade. it's part of our nature - socially, it's how we work. That does change somewhat with the world wide (w)archive. This isn't going to go away. Inevitable we'll adapt and learn what to trust and what not to trust as we do in flesh and blood communities where we understand the background of social structures that give out information (eg, information from a policeman is different to information you get from a politician or some bloke at the local pub). We instinctively filter and grade information. (i'm making this sounds like search engines are socially more advanced then people online!)
The key here is understanding those structures which is where i come back to the main point. spock.com serves as a painful but possibly necessary element in the process of learning that information doesn't mean truth online. Or at least helping to make this more obvious.
Like i said at the beginning, this is no excuse for spock.com but i think, minus a utopian world, we can't move on without it and without learning how to deal with it. Let's just hope we do move on.
While I think there is something to the point that episodes like this cause us all to take a second look at what information about us is publicly available online, I don't think that's any excuse for the people who put this thing together. I doubt the developers sat down with their VC firm and made the case that this is "for the good of the internet." I do think, though, that something like this, being a possible model for a website, was probably inevitable.
But that realization should not temper our collective response.
Who knows - we may see changes to Spock that render it not-so-offensive. If they're smart, they'll take the public backlash in this post and any other strong negative feedback and alter their model. If not, I can't imagine they'll last - the thing stinks to high heaven as it is.
Right is it just me or are Spock completely off their rockers, just looked at their legal page and:
Now by making the user agree to all that dont they have to act in a similar manner? Which means if I find any information on there about me, as the holder of that info (its on their site, servers and software) they're liable for it...
edit: I'm pissed as i'm on there. Wheres the remove button?
looks like it's a bit like the file sharing thing all over again - illegal (or should be) if they are hosting it. Basically they are saying: it's not ok for you to post it but it's ok for us to publish and store it. Considering their model, i'd say that covers nearly all the data they have.
and torrentspy and others were all closed down, so cant see these guys getting too far. its one thing getting consent to create profiles, another to randomly scrape details from elsewhere.
I hate sites that force you to have a presence - and thats what Spock is trying to do. o be honest - I never thought I would be on it - but voila! I must be popular. It even has my half hearted attempt at blogspot listed - what got me was the tags - tall, wears glasses, brown eyes, dark hair? Obviously someones put that there and knows me.
Yuck. Thank god theres nothing else.
Hi Jane,
This is a real eye-opener, thanks. I've blogged about it here:
https://slewfootsnoop.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/when-snooping-goes-too-far/
Cheers,
Murray
Really good post, Murray. Their Terms of Service are pretty awful. I suggest everyone who's taken an interest in this post and its comments also read your piece.
You've included it in your piece, but it's worth adding here too. How's this for a worrying paragraph, especially given the lack of control you have over what others write about you:
Compared with the TOS of Facebook and Myspace (which Murray does in his post), that's going a step beyond reasonable.
Absolutely - although most SNs have a disclaimer about re-use, this whole matter of 'sub-licensing' is another worrying aspect to Spock.
I'm doing a few lectures/demos to news journalists at the BBC touching on people-finding in the coming weeks, and I'm really glad I happened across your post - I'll be mentioning it, and flagging up the debate here.
Its crucial that journalists get the heads up on the questionable elements behind sources like this, before anything mad/sad/bad happens.
Best,
Murray
This site (which I signed up to ages ago and never really went back to) strikes me as an accident waiting to happen. When you consider the libel laws in countries like the UK, I think allowing others to put up whatever they want about another person makes a very risky business model.
Thanks for the heads up - found myself on there too + some misinfo.
When you edited the misinformation, did you manage to remove it entirely from the page? I couldn't remove everything I wanted to get rid of...
I'm gonna try right now :)
yay! ..... I'm in a queue .....
Hmmm... how long do you need to wait to get control of your name in Spock? 24 hours, still nothing.
I've heard nothing about getting my profile deleted and I contacted them about two days ago now.
@sarahbird... what's your legal take on this?
pretty please... ?
Just an update, even after I flagged my profile for removal, it's still there, so timeliness isn't a strong point of Spock's either.
The other thought I had on this, since it seems they are actually scraping and storing MySpace, LinkedIn, and other data in a Spock profile is this in some way violating the terms of those sites. Kind of like the Craigslist issue with sites that used (and at times improved) their data.
I just checked out their about page - they have VC funding - Clearstone Venture. I would love to get the legal opinion about the site but with the VC money I think that they would have checked it out. Regardless of the legal opinion, public opinion could be an issue. They clearly have big plans with versions in Europe in addition to the US version. At this point I suspect that almost no one knows about it yet. What will happen when the public does find out that they are not who they think they are?
They may well have checked out the law in the US, but libel laws in the UK are WAY mroe stringent. I'd be interested to get an opinion from a UK lawyer on this, especially when you consider that even ISPs aren't safe over here..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_v._Demon_Internet_Service
(Link purposely dropped without anchor text so as to not annoy Rand!)
Ciaran, I'll be mentioning this post to an internet lawyer i know, as i'm pretty certain this would fall into the dual problems in the UK of both Libel law (presenting false information) and then also the Data Protection act (not allowing access, displaying publicly information about you etc)
Either way I totally dont agree with this Spock Sprock program, Its a haven for people to present false information and generally a nuisance. Luckily I doubt it will achieve critical mass and has most likely had its greatest amount of traffic from this post...
It is possible, supposedly, to edit your spock profile so that the profile itself is visible only to you. I can't remember how I found the edit button (their site is certainly not intuitive), but one of them allowed me to change my details (sex, birthdate, location) and also allowed me to check a box showing who my profile was visible to. I'll log out and see if it works, but I thought it might be worth mentioning...
I found the bit that suggested I could make my profile editable only by me, but it returned an error message. I've flagged it for removal, but I don't know that I'll ever get a response. Maybe after this blog post, I might.
I think that may be when you have created your own profile, rather than when you are still trying to claim one that someone else made in your name..
It is troublesome and freaky... The nature of this where anyone can edit any profile... simply kills accuracy, authority and relevance... I found myself together with a collection of links that are already available in different places
Hi Jane,
It is shocking to see someone misusing the details.
And, It is also little scary to think that we cannot control the information.
I do think a stark realization is coming for many people who have been open about themselves on the Internet. Anything you've ever shared with anyone can be found, collated and compiled on you. Most of the people doing this have no nefarious aims. But don't blame the compilers for this mess. Blame those of us who blabbed all our our pets and boyfriends in the first place.
Tell me that it's not creepy for someone to compile that information - someone whom I've never met - and that it's not weird to encourage that behaviour in the first place.
Additionally, I'm quite well aware of what's out there about me - it's the knowledge that falsehoods could be added to a page like this and never removed which really bothers me.
I really don't think it is creepy, I'm sorry. You are the one who posted that information somewhere. If you were going for a job interview, you might be very interested in knowing things about the person who will be interviewing you that he/she wouldn't post in an official bio. That's the kind of service Spocks provides. I rather like to know both -- what you want me to know about you, and -- what you don't want me to know about you. Cuts down on hypocrisy.
I didn't post which high school I went to in a place that this person could see it. My university posted it on a sports profile, along with the events I swam, which this person unearthed and included.
It doesn't bother you that I could create a profile about you and add false information that you could not easily remove? Is that the sort of information you'd like a potential employer to find?
How is Spock.com or anyone else to police the truthfulness of those who post on you? Does Spock know if someone comments that you like turtles, that you don't? Even if you contact Spock and swear that you don't like turtles, that doesn't mean YOU are telling the truth. Maybe your neighbor knows that you have a turtle farm out back. I don't know.People want a free and open Internet until it gets too close to them. It is okay to place reviews on Amazon (even though the reviewer may work for the competition); it is okay to review restaurants and hotels (even though the reviewer may not tell the truth) but when it comes to reporting on Jane Copland, you want veracity. Wow!I am aware of entries on Wikipedia that are full of mistruths. I know this from first-hand knowledge. The only balanced answer is that web browsers have to decide for themselves which sites and which posters they trust. I no longer trust anything I read on Wikipedia.I wouldn't recommend you trust me. Maybe I work for Spock. How do you know? You can't. And you can't edit out every suspicious post either.So, yes, maybe I can go to Spock and say I saw you bowling on Tuesday night when you weren't bowling, you were at night school. Maybe your mom will be mad because you were supposed to be in school. Big deal. Anyone who trusts Spock to be accurate is making a mistake. Anyone who thinks Spock and other sites should police accuracy is making a bigger mistake.p.s. I don't work for Spock (do you believe me, or not?).
This comment is the most juvenile excuse for a defense of position I've seen in a long time. It displays no concept whatsoever of the topic at hand - that Spock encourages strangers to add information about others, true or otherwise, and that it picks information from multiple online locations that may not be accurate and present it as fact. Please see Jean Christofferson's comment below.
You stated earlier that Spock could help potential employers gleen information about prospective hires that they would not have found elsewhere. I do not see how the ability of the public to add false information, whether it be about a person's pet turtle or about their penchant for bowling, is a good thing. I cannot believe that you'd stand behind such a position.
And finally, as an unrelated aside, using the "mom" line indicates that you're a fourteen year old boy, which is probably the case and I really should not have wasted the last two minutes of my life reading your comment or replying to it.
Jane. I think it is the sign of a well-reasoned blogger to resort to name-calling "14-year-old-boy" when the facts don't support your position. You do have a lot of people on this site who agree with you. That sure takes a lot of original thinking and courage. You don't really get that even your wonderful site -- and this wonderful blog -- are full of liars and lies. Again, I repeat, so what? You and Sean can tell all the lies in the world about me -- and if I prove you are wrong, will you correct it? Start with the fact that I do have a standing web site -- www.harwoodandharrison.com and that it wasn't begun yesterday. Go ahead and retract that lie! I dare you. Or as a 14-year-old might say, I double-dare you!
People disagree with me and other SEOmoz staff members all the time. The fact that no one on this thread agrees with you has nothing to do with whether they agree with me. You have painted yourself as lacking maturity, resorting to "mom" jokes and promoting posting lies on the Internet. Sean stated that your website was a fake because it wouldn't resolve earlier today.
Which other liars and lies have you come across?
Jane. I am not promoting lies. I'm acknowledging that they are a fact not only on Spock, but even here. What is offensive or immature about referring to "mom" in a post. I don't get it. What I am saying is that the Internet can't be policed and if there is personal information on it, it's fair game. And yes, while I don't promote or advocate lying, I think it should be allowed -- mostly because who will be the Big Brother/1984 cops who decide what is and what is not a lie. Finally, let me say that I think any site that almost universally gives thumbs up to posters is itself dimwitted. Sites are no fun without someone getting thumbs down. I'm happy to be the thumbs down queen. Please vote for me. (I think for Sean to suggest I am a stalker is a lie. And libelous.)
You think its a lie, but your not certain that your not a stalker....
right...... well you is a crazy fool!
Thank you for adding your wisdom to this discussion. And they accuse me of being a 14-year-old!
ha ha, i'm am sometimes... however i was merely following your logic
"(I think for Sean to suggest I am a stalker is a lie. And libelous."
Therefore if you "think" that sean suggesting you were a stalker is a lie, then you were unsure as to the truth of that statement - ie are you or are you not...
anyhooooo....
back to my playground :)
Sandra - I fear that you want to have your privacy cake and to eat it too:
OK, so you like Spock right, and you'd trust the information?
Oh. I'm not sure who is more confused, you or me.
The real issue here is not whether or not the people who believe this stuff are making a mistake or not, it's whether a site like Spock, which actively invites the submission of unverified data on other individuals, represents a sea-change in the web.
I still believe it does, no matter how much you chop or change your arguments. Because no matter how entirely knowledgeable about the web and its lack of credibility you may be, there will be people out there who will believe it and some of them may, as you suggest in your initial comment, be in positions where being in receipt of that false information could cause them to make decisions which negatively impact the person being discussed.
Most of us know that a lot of stuff that gets published in tabloid papers is bullshit, but that doesn't stop people suing those papers (succesfully) for libel.
Ciaran. Thank you for the civil tone of your posts and your comments. The host of this site could take a lesson from your ability to make your points without having to insult or lie about me.
I still beg the question, how to police TRUTH on the Internet. Spock is an easy target -- too easy! How about lies here? How about lies on Amazon reviews?
Once you start, where do you stop. How do you define rules that apply to serious offenders without also applying them to casual, unintentional offenders.
The First Amendment guarantees free to speech to despicable types of speech for this very reason. One woman's idea of offense is another's idea of honesty.
And the first amendment is a wonderful thing. In the US.
I live in the UK and have a feeling (though I'm hoping that someone can check this for me) that as Spock invites people to submit info on people from any region, they would therefore be open to UK libel laws. Which are very, very tough.
Like I said, I don't think that you can compare this with sites like Amazon, which invite comments on products, not people (although a new law in the UK makes it illegal for brands or their representatives to pretend to be consumers, so anyone doing that on Amazon could also potentially get in trouble with the UK law).
The difference with Spock is that it actively invites submissions about individuals from people who may know nothing about that person.
To be honest, as someone further down the thread says, I doubt that Spock will ever get anything like the weight of users it needs to cause any problems. That doesn't mean that it's not setting a nasty precedent.
Sandra - I think that you're missing the point. What if the info posted wasn't true? What if it was stuff that hadn't been posted elsewhere on the web, but had actually come from some sort of stalking?
This is spooky (spocky?) no matter how you look at it.
It seems the stalker has dropped by to defend him/herself.
You see - here's the problem I have Mr. "Sandra" Harrison.
If I were the stalker coming back to defend myself, what might I do -
1) Create a new "female" profile - check (Sandra created today)
2) Reference my "Boyfriend" in my profile - check
3) Reference a url in my profile - check
The only problems are:
1) You created your profile today
2) The url was created yesterday
3) The privacy of the creator is guarded
4) There is no website "Harwood and Harrison Taking On the Issues" as you state in your profile.
You're a fake. Your biggest error was coming across a bit to hard and emotional in your defense. Plus, your writing has the tone of a man. One that's a bit pissed off. Nice try though.
BTW - Jane - I didn't know you were a bowler. How loong have we owned that damn turtle farm together? You didn't mention bowling once! "Oh, Sean - Tuesday night? I'm sorry, I have to umm...wash my hair. Now I find out you were out bowling. WTF?
You see, Jane and SEOmoz.com are willing to print your lies about me. That is the very point. What did you discover when you went to www.harwoodandharrison.com? For anyone who cares about the truth -- and my point is, why should anyone -- my URL was NOT created yesterday and I'm not a 13-year-old boy. Sorry. Your posts are full of mistruths. I might even say libel. But I wouldn't advocate shutting down SEOmoz. I'm fair game. But so are you. Don't think I can find out more about you and post it -- true or not? Don't be sure.
@Sandra - What did I discover when I visited harwoodandharrison a SECOND time?
I discovered that you slapped up a wordpress template and a 5 paragraph intro about 15 minutes after I checked it the first time, when I was defaulted to RoadRunner - further confirming you're a phony. So - what's your point?
Sean, you bring no honor to yourself, Jane or this site by lying or libeling me. The links on my site date back to posts I made on the NYTimes blog weeks ago. Pretty imaginative on my part to get the NYT to help in my hoax, isn't it?
Attention anyone here with an open mind Sean is lying about me right here right now. Jane is letting him lie. What is the difference between this and Spock?
My apologies "Sandra". I had the month wrong. According to the whois registry, your domain was registered on April 13th - not May 13th.
That said, regardless of when the url was registered, I still believe you to be a phony - someone that just enjoys flaming boards for attention as you've done here.
This will be my last comment on the issue. Fire away at will.
Ha! Ha! So basically, everything you said and Jane published about me was a lie! Wonderful. You telling folks that I made up my site 15 minutes ago just to look credible here wasn't accurate; you telling folks that I have no site wasn't accurate; you calling me a stalker isn't accurate. Who needs Spock? We've got Jane, You and SEOMOZ.com!
Yes, Sean. Don't you go being so sure ;)
Why does this remind me of Jason Bloody Gambert? Same old daft arguments backed up by fabricated by fake "proof".
I repeat - yuck.
Congratulations, you have your first stalker.
You do actually make a relevant point here Sandra; sites like this should make us all realise that we need to be more careful about the data we provide on the web (I presume the date of birth you give on your SEOmoz profile is fake - mine certainly is).
That doesn't mean that Spock is any less bizarre for actively encouraging people to profile other individuals they may not know.