Monday, May 27, 2013 | 2 a.m.
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I am at a loss to understand the uproar over the data gathering practices of Bloomberg journalists from Bloomberg terminal accounts. In 1999, Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy famously said: “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” So why is this kind of data mining still news? Many online business models include data mining of their users’ behavior. Facebook, Google, et al. collect massive amounts of data about users.
I created a test Facebook account for testing using no identifying information related to me. Facebook made friend recommendations to the test account. Those recommendations were my personal friends. No privacy there, yet no news stories either.
Finally there is the complete hypocrisy of JP Morgan Chase. Bloomberg did not do anything with customer data that JPMorgan Chase does not claim the right to do under its privacy policy. I quote from the Chase’s privacy policy, “For our affiliates’ everyday business purposes — information about your transactions and experiences. Does Chase share? Yes. Can you limit sharing? No.”
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