jengolbeck

This is an interesting question because it highlights how we are NOT using your data. While places like Amazon know what you have purchased, that doesn't always get incorporated into the algorithms to tell it to stop recommending things to you that you've already bought. It's a place where more data could make it better, but there are a lot of concerns about if information from all parts of the system should be integrated together. But you are right– without question, we have a long way to go in making better recommendations.

I have mixed feelings. As someone who has had a security clearance and who works with the government on a lot of projects, I think it was a very serious violation for him to share so much classified information. On the other hand, if the government (or part of it) is violating the laws designed to protect citizens, I understand his motivation for wanting to do something about it. He could not have achieved the same level of attention to these details in any other way.

But, I honestly try to focus my attention more on the science side than on the law/policy side. The latter is extremely important, but not where I have my deepest expertise.

I mentioned it in another response, but if you DO want to analyze yourself, you can use http://www.analyzewords.com/ on your Twitter account. It uses text analysis tools from LIWC at liwc.net to create a brief psychological profile. It's pretty cool.

Ads are the place where there seems to be money in this now. However, I often (half) joke that if I get bored with this job, I would start a company that aggregates a lot of information about people, makes inferences over it (inferring things like commitment to your job, how well you work with others, how much of a procrastinator you are, etc.) and sell that report to businesses like your credit report gets sold. I think there is a lot of opportunity to make money off this data, but we are just starting to see this happen.

I think there are two arguments to make. On the government side, it is, in some ways, an easier discussion because there are lots of laws about how the government can collect information on you and use it. There are definitely issues to discuss there, but there is a guiding framework of what the government should be allowed to do.

On the non-government side it gets tricky. As MashCaster pointed out in response to your question, people get fired for things they post online. I am working on a book now on how to conduct investigations through social media, and I have heard from dozens of family lawyers who talk about how they use social media in custody and divorce cases. The fact is that even if you aren't doing something wrong, there can be ways that information about your illegal activities can be used against you– whether it is honest or twisted a little bit. I think it's naive to pretend that privacy doesn't matter; it does, especially when you are involved with people (like in legal matters) who do not want to give you the benefit of the doubt.