Posted Birthdays

[eastender]

I was totally shocked and amazed that in the public area MERB has chosen to post the birthdays of members - date and User Id.Merb has compromised members privacy by doing so - given the month and day of birth makes it significantly easier to identify a member.

When provided to MERB this information was never authorized for public
release and by doing so Merb has broken a fundemental level of trust that
must exist between MERB and the members.

This action by MERB also casts doubt on the willingness and ability of the MERB ownership and moderators to properly perform their respective responsibilities.

 

[Mod 2]

Eastender,

If you don't mind, I'd like to bring the following facts to your attention:

1) The calendar feature with member's birthday has always been there. This is something that you could have notice while or even before you registered.
2) who knows if the entered birthdays are real? Anyone could enter anything there.
3) No-one is required to leave a birthday in the system after registration. You can go ahead and remove it via the User Control Panel in the User Profile section.
4) Birthdays showing in the calendar in an integral part of the vBulletin software. The same feature exists on MERB, TERB, PERB, as well as M/E/R/C, the other board here in Montreal

Bottom line, there is nothing to get upset about IMO.

M2

 

[eastender]

Birthdays



Assuming fakes then why gather such data,organize and post it?

Possibilities for abuse are endless - people continuously shill on this board,
with this data they could be more effective by targeting dates that are grouped and posting that when a provider learned it was a birthday something extra happened.
An agency with some marketing skills could use such data to target their
marketing.
A stalker or an exploiter could target a member SP thinking that she could be
more vulnerable around her birthday.
If the time was taken to study and poll the situation,the list would be extended significantly.

 

[Mod 2]

Assuming fakes then why gather such data,organize and post it?

I think I answered this question already:

4) Birthdays showing in the calendar in an integral part of the vBulletin software.

Possibilities for abuse? As soon as one has an "identity" anywhere in the world, whether real or virtual, the possibilities exist....

eMail address --> Spam
home address --> Marketing junk delivered at the door
Phone number --> Unwanted marketing related calls
etc, etc, etc...

M2

 

[eastender]

Evolution


The technology to gather,fine tune and use data is constantly evolving.
Data that was seen as harmless or insignificant weeks/months/years ago has
been shown to provide valuable demographic data by major retailers such
as Wal Mart(do a Google).

A further example - until a few years ago in the province of Quebec names of police officers and victims were regularly publicized as part of a news story.Today this is not done basically for privacy reasons.

Policy or technology has to evolve accordingly.

 

[eastender]

Problem/Solution

Mod2,
So effectively your points can be reduced to the simple statement that you prefer to remain part of the problem and not the solution.

 

[Mod 2]

Mod2,
So effectively your points can be reduced to the simple statement that you prefer to remain part of the problem and not the solution.

No, my whole point is that YOU are the solution to what you see as a "problem".

You don't want people to see your birthday? REMOVE IT from your user profile and stop complaining about it.

End of story.

M2

 

[eastender]

What is the real problem?Mod2

No, my whole point is that YOU are the solution to what you see as a "problem".

You don't want people to see your birthday? REMOVE IT from your user profile and stop complaining about it.

End of story.

M2

Very troubled by this post by Mod 2 because it changed the direction of the thread and has serious undertones.

Specifically the original post was never about me since at no time during the registration or after did I provide MERB with my date of birth.So it never appeared in my public profile or anywhere else.So the quote makes no sense.
Similarly for other posts relating to how one should or could delete such information.Simply something that was never posted cannot be deleted.

The real issue is why didn't Mod2 do the obvious and check if my date of birth was ever provided or posted?It should be obvious to the reader that if
Mod2 had made the effort to do this then he would not have reached
the conclusion Mod2 expressed above.Now was this a simple lapse into laziness with the resulting consequences,was this a poor effort to avoid
a serious discussion about privacy issues or is this an indication that Mod2
is biased in his treatment of individual members?

 

[Lawless]

eastender
What's your point....no one has to provide that piece of information and the assessment of Mod2 is correct.
...and as stated above...if ever provided, any date can be inserted
Who else complained about this matter???

 

[Avery]

given the month and day of birth makes it significantly easier to identify a member.

Exactly! And that's why most members (including you and me) don't provide that information in their profiles. And, I suspect that a lot of the posted birthdays are as phony as people's handles.

Simply something that was never posted cannot be deleted.

What a revelation! Not only that, something that was never posted can't be seen by anyone else either!

Possibilities for abuse are endless - people continuously shill on this board, with this data they could be more effective by targeting dates that are grouped and posting that when a provider learned it was a birthday something extra happened. An agency with some marketing skills could use such data to target their marketing.

The level of sophistication that would require far exceeds the level that most, if not all, agencies actually have. Even then, it would require that the personal information they obtained here be accurate.

What a lame thread!

 

[orallover]

"Damn..I am so bored today..what can I do to stir up some shit on Merb?..lets see , lets see..Hmmmmm, Ummmm...let me think now...something juicy..something to show how smart I am..

You can always go back to that Clive's thread and try to come up with something to out-dumb him

seriously, what with complaints of calendar feature? I wonder if anyone has made official complaints to Microsoft where Outlook calendar can be used to collect b-days and appointments, etc.. personal information which then can be hacked by hackers and used for bad purpose? how about complaints to pen and paper makers because we could write some personal information down then lose those papers which can be found by bad people and they can use it.

 

[orallover]

Orallover..I don't want to go to clive's thread..I don't want anything to do with Clive..very sensitive issue for me..but besides that, did you understand my previous post?..I'm not the one whos bored..

SA

I think I misunderstood. who was the one being bored?

 

[Bruce34]

Happy Birthday

BTW Happy Birthday Smack Appeal. You're turning huh 102. I would have provided you Viagra but Ronnie has a better offer...
(See SP for details).