If you're not wild about being mined: The Infinite Loop Designed to Break the Data Mining Market

[snot]

From http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-infinite-loop-designed-to-break-the-data-mining-market?utm_source=mbfb :

The internet is a big, dark monetization machine. People log in, share some memes, and money shoots out of a wormhole-like vortex on the other end. In the middle are data brokers, businesses that collect and buy your data in order to resell it to other companies.

{snip}

You probably don’t know who the data brokers buying and selling your information are, and penetrating the industry’s veil of secrecy has been the focus of many a research project and government report. Some startups like Datacoup have tried to make the process of data brokerage more transparent, however, letting customers sell their own data and receive a cut of the revenue.

But what if the very idea of willingly turning the details of your shopping or entertainment habits into cash is untenable even if you get a cut?

Enter Data Arbitrage. The program automatically sells users’ social media data to brokers and then uses the resulting funds to buy fake accounts, which in turn provide more data to sell. A bot called “ArbiBot” lives on the user’s computer and generates posts from the fake accounts. The goal is to eventually generate so much noisy, fake data that the whole enterprise of data brokerage is rendered completely useless.

More at the link.

[X_Digger]

1. Hrmmmm!! I want to like the idea, but.. not sure. ;) n/t

[snot]

2. Kind of how I felt, too.

[Bubzer]

6. It's great, in theory...

poison the well... despoil its value. Interesting to say the least.

[blue neen]

3. Hmm. Interesting concept.

We'll have to see how this works out, because the data mining is completely out of control.

[Gman]

4. Good idea

And the windows are now open for wagering on how long it takes for Data Arbitrage to 1) get a cease and desist order and 2) get sued

[Warpy]

5. HAHAHAHAHA!

Decrease the signal to noise ratio and make all the data so untrustworthy as to be useless.

I love it.

Too bad I don't do social media. I'd probably jump at this one.

Then again, instead of real data, they'd all go back to focus groups of morons.