18 to 24 Insight: Spock (A Social Networking Aggregator) is Spooky

Because MySpace Facebook LinkedIn Xing Friendster Wikipedia IMDB and NNDB werenamp8217t enough Spock a beta website searches the Internet to compile all public information about you and everyone you know Spock named for the acronym amp8220single point of contact by keywordamp8221 could have been more accurately named amp8220Spookamp8221 because itamp8217s downright creepyFounded in 2006 by Jay Bhatti and Jaideep Singh Spock searches social networks news sites blogs directories and just about anywhere to compile information on individuals Chances are that if you donamp8217t think you have a Spock profile you do The good news is that if you do indeed have a Spock profile you can claim it as your own and add or remove information as you see fit You may also choose to cancel your account altogether but Spock warns that if you havenamp8217t signed up for Spock you need to remove all public information such as your LinkedIn Profile or MySpace page This is because Spock continually amp8220crawlsamp8221 the Internet for publicly available information So unless you register for Spock it will continue to aggregate public information And you canamp8217t do anything about it Itamp8217s as if users are blackmailed into registrationI found Spock when I Googled a reality show contestant Her Spock profile looked identical to her MySpace page Thatamp8217s when I discovered how Spock was an aggregator of public information on everyone from Angelina Jolie right down to John Doe Is that really that guyamp8217s name You can imagine how surprised I was to find my own Spock Profile one which I hadnamp8217t created yet somehow knew that I was female and a native of Brooklyn New York Since the information was accurate I let it be A few weeks later a friend requested my amp8220trustamp8221 on Spock and I opted to sign up and build my own profile before Spock did the rest for meUpon signing in Spock invited me to discover what my friends were doing on the web Somehow I suppose based on my email address book browsing history or tags Spock knows whom I know and shows me their profiles But Spock isnamp8217t all that omnipotent If you share a name with anyone else who has an online presence Spock can get confused and lump you all together In my case Spock thinks I am two different people and Iamp8217ve been trying unsuccessfully for a month to have my profiles merged A friend was tagged as someoneamp8217s grandfather when he is indeed not I voted against the relevancy of the tag but it remains active The MediaPost blog lists several of Spockamp8217s features and adds why they are unique among the growing sea of social networking aggregators Much like the real world your Spock popularity awards you a greater authority Your amp8220Spock Poweramp8221 number is based on your activity and trust level Cofounder Jay Bhatti has a Spock Power of nearly 350000 At the writing of this blog my Spock Power is 20 So that probably explains why I canamp8217t seem to merge my profiles or effectively vote against tags The socalled amp8220Robotamp8221 which crawls the web for information has a score of 1 thereby making any registered user at least slightly more powerful than the almighty Spock robot Spock Robot has its very own profile Some of its tags are amp8220finds way too much informationamp8221 amp8220web stalkeramp8221 and amp8220hates privacyamp8221 To each of these tags I voted amp8220yesamp8221

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18 to 24 Insight: Spock (A Social Networking Aggregator) is Spooky

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Nina Spezzaferro

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18 to 24 Insight: Spock (A Social Networking Aggregator) is Spooky

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