Banks may be mining social media sites for personal info

[Newsjock]

Source: KGO-TV

Web users are becoming increasinly aware that companies are secretly gathering and selling the information they post on social sites like Facebook and Twitter. But now, banks may also be judging them based on their social network profile.

For the first time, banks can look pretty deeply into your private life by looking at your Facebook or other social media page and they may even consider your network of friends. The question is, "Will banks use your online persona to decide whether to give you credit?"

... Companies like RapLeaf of San Francisco have been quietly gathering information you post publicly on sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. RapLeaf has now created "social profiles" on 387 million unwitting consumers and sold them to lots of companies, including banks.

"As far as how many banks are using it, they're not saying," Sandberg says. "They're not saying and the banks aren't saying so, and they don't have to."

... 7 On Your Side asked major banks about this. Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Capital One all said they do not use social profiles for any purpose. Bank of America declined to comment or provide any statement.

Read more: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/7_on_your_side&id=7283384

[ananda]

1. Ask me if I give a fuck about big sucky banks.

I don't.

[leftofcool]

2. So maybe if you post to a Liberal forum and your bank is

largely Republican, you can be denied credit?

[SoCalDem]

3. or maybe if you regularly rant about your asshole boss & your sucky job

they may feel you might not be employed much longer...and maybe that loan you want might not get processed..

[frylock]

4. who is leaving their profiles open for ANYONE to see?!!

[enlightenment]

5. That's my question.

How many times do people have to hear about people using the information they post against them to shut the damn door?

[tbyg52]

6. Well, I've been on Facebook for a while to play Mafia Wars (under a fake name)

and I've noticed that "improvements" usually mean more stuff is made public unless you go back and reset it to private.

[Newsjock]

7. Apparently 387 million people

If you believe the spin from RapLeaf.

On edit: Which, I'll add, is greater than the entire U.S. population, so draw your own conclusions about the validity of this data.

[Statistical]

8. Its not just banks... debt colleciton companies too.

"Guess what guys, I finally got a job" = moves you to top of list to get a call about making a payment.

Other information regarding lifestyle, likely sources of wealth income, likelihood of collecting payment in lawsuit, etc can all be mined.

This isn't stuff that is done manually. Anything digital can be processed easily by computers.
Fuzzy logic text searches can get lots of good leads.

It doesn't need to be 100% perfect just "good enough".