I'm not normally part of this list, my wife is (and so I'm posting using her
ID), but she's been forwarding me messages on this topic because it's one that
I find interesting.
> I perhaps am a bit paranoically challenged, but so long as this feature
> doesn't disclose anything lower than the domain-level, I can't see the
> violation of personal privacy here.
There may be none, assuming that they adhere to their policy of only posting
information about relatively large sites. Unfortunately they've already goofed
that once, posting information about a site that had only six members, so we
know that there are problems with their system. Consider that my family has a
domain so if information is posted about purchases from that domain they have
effectively posted personal information.
But the more chilling thing about this is that this is a very effective
industrial espionage enabler. We know, for instance, that Intel is putting a
big effort behind supporting Linux by the simple fact that people at Intel are
buying lots of books about Linux technology. This is rather valuable
information for Microsoft because it means a shift in Intel's operating support
strategy away from Microsoft. If Intel were keeping that a secret it'd be
out....
My bet is that this hits the mainstream news tomorrow or Friday and that the
capability is gone by Monday. It's horrible PR.
jim
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:50:10 PST