with a product as ubiquitous as facebook, the public has raised a number of privacy-related concerns including optional settings, privacy policies and data mining. in the past, readwriteweb covered facebook's plans to sell user data for market research purposes. however, today's article in the boston globe suggests that user information can be mined for more than just advertising purposes.
facebook_socialgraph_sept09.jpgan mit experiment dubbed, "gaydar" by creators carter jernigan and behram mistree has employed computational analysis to identify user traits based on information listed by their facebook friends. through friend profiles, the program predicts the likelihood of your religious affiliations, political leanings and even your sexual orientation. essentially the idea is that friends are likely to share traits. so if you're in the closet, but you've got loads of vocal friends, a program of this nature could potentially out you.
said hal abelson, a professor who co-taught the course, "[it] pulls the rug out from a whole policy and technology perspective that the point is to give you control over your information - because you don't have control over your information."
with the service being used to catch tax evaders, in addition to a conspiracy theory citing cia ties, it'll be interesting to see how the public reacts to this latest show of facebook data mining capabilities. while it's unlikely that terrorist suspects are friending each other on facebook, there are a number of associations that need not be publicized to corporate partners or governments.
对于facebook这样如此普遍的产品，大众存在很多隐私担忧，比如选项设置、隐私政策和数据挖掘等。读写网曾报道facebook打算销售用户数据，用于市场调研目的。但今天的《波士顿环球报》有一篇文章表示，用户数据不仅可以用于广告目的。
facebook_socialgraph_sept09.jpgmit一个叫做“同志感应（gaydar ）”软件（由carter jernigan和behram mistree创建）根据用户facebook好友的信息，采用计算分析来识别用户特征。通过好友档案，这软件序可以预测你的宗教信仰、政治倾向，甚至性取向。即便你还没有出柜，通过你那些会“说话”的好友，这种程序也可能逼你出柜。
有人通过facebook缉拿逃税者，有人通过facebook揭发阴谋，大众会对facebook的数据挖掘能力作何反应呢？恐怖分子可能不会在facebook上相互好友，但是否和公司或政府相关就不好说了。