Just about everyone on the web has heard of Face Book. Heck I thought it was a great idea when I first signed up. I mean I have moved around a lot and I thought it would be cool to catch up with long lost friends and such. But you know, I never felt quite right using Face Book. I mean I’d like to think that I have been around when it comes to the internet. When using Face Book I just never had that “warm fuzzy feeling” (this is how we describe things in bomb disposal when things are going right – if you don’t have it something is about to go wrong).

 You see I just couldn’t figure out how Mark Zuckerberg and his investors from Face Book were making any money. Sure they had advertising on the site but who clicks those anyways? (Judging by my AdSense stats not many) However Face Book kept getting bigger and bigger and here I was getting more and more Zombie, Werewolf, Vampire, and who knows what else requests. It seemed odd to me that all these Face Book applications required access to your profile and such. Then it dawned on me – data mining. Face Book was one vast Data Mine!

 What is data mining you ask? Well briefly it is extracting useful information from a large amount of information. Basically Face Book knows your age, your geographic location, your relationship status, your education, your profession, your mood (if you choose to update it) and a bunch more. Not only do they know this about you but they also know this about all your friends as well. This is valuable stuff if used in the right context. I mean this is marketers gold! Don’t kid yourself that they are not selling it either. Don’t believe me? Check out these videos.

 I don’t know about you but having my information sold like that just makes me feel dirty. As of January 6 2007 I have deactivated my face Book account. When Face Book asked me why (a nice courtesy to keep you in their evil clutches). I wrote a them a nice note about how data mining ranks up there with spammers.

 As always I want to hear what you think, good or bad.

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