They're spying on our conversations! Good or bad?

Social media sites like theMet are now the target of companies and the Government who are trying to find out what people are saying. Visible Technologies crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. They provide this information to companies who want to know what people are saying about their brands. And guess who just invested a ton of money in them? In-Q-Tel the investment arm of the CIA. Here's the article about it.

I can understand why companies want to know what is being said about them but I'm not sure I want the government listening in on every conversation we have online.

What do you think?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by stephanie on October 25, 2009 at 4:56am: I don't mind as I have nothing to worry about.If I have a problem with something in a company, I don't write it down.I always watched out not to write when I loose my tempter.
But I find it hard when they interfere in my relations, well we don't know everything about everybody.It could be me being put apart even if I still asked myself why.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Kevin on October 25, 2009 at 9:11am: I got some bad news for you. This has already been going on for a long time. ECHELON has been collecting our calls, emails, etc. for a long time. Not to mention Bush's illegal wiretaps. The new news to me here is that corporations are getting in on this. Lets not forget that corporations have a lot to do with our national and international policy. Oil companies and defense contractors would be able to listen to the conversations of their critics this way. That's scary!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Fatima on October 25, 2009 at 10:51am: i completely agree. it's ridiculous...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John Shinaberry on October 25, 2009 at 3:21pm: I for one welcome our new CIA overloards. I'd like to remind them that I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil away in their secret prisons.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Eugene on October 26, 2009 at 5:04pm: lol; ▶ Reply to This

$rp {|} // .MrPresident___++$ Permalink Reply by rp {|} // .MrPresident___++ on October 25, 2009 at 5:16pm: I could care less. If I like or dislike a company or a product or something that the government is doing I will say it in any fashion I please…screw em all; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Eugene on October 26, 2009 at 5:08pm: It's pretty intimidating what kind of information the government and corporations have access to. That being said, I don't think that it affects my behavior online, but I do try not to say extremely stupid things.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Doctolero on October 28, 2009 at 1:24am: Well, I'm not too worried, I remember when I signed up to Gmail, the terms and conditions state that they get to keep all emails that get sent to me, even if I deleted it or closed the account.......so I guess spying on our converstations is no big suprise.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Kyle Higgins on October 28, 2009 at 9:24am: Bad... Its another step down the wrong staircase; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Charles on October 28, 2009 at 1:18pm: If they look on facebook they can find out what people had for lunch. I prefer not to have my privacy invaded but truly I don't care because I only say stupid shit anyway who cares. I thought super markets know enough--what people are buying, never mind what they're saying. Perhaps the truth is US govt is more interested than Nabisco or Nestle is, but don't want to adopt the same tone as GW did when he pushed this thing
If anyone's watching, I like Nutella. Put that in your research.; ▶ Reply to This

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