'Dating' Site Imports 250k Facebook Profiles 140
mark72005 sends this snippet from Wired:
"How does a unknown dating site, with the absurd intention of destroying Facebook, launch with 250,000 member profiles on the first day? Simple. You scrape data from Facebook. At least, that's the approach taken by two provocateurs who launched Lovely-Faces.com this week, with profiles — names, locations and photos — scraped from publicly accessible Facebook pages. The site categorizes these unwitting volunteers into personality types, using a facial recognition algorithm, so you can search for someone in your general area who is 'easy going,' 'smug' or 'sly.' ... [The creators] say they will take down a user’s profile if a person asks, and the site doesn’t have any indication they are actually trying to make any money. Instead, it’s part of a series of prank sites, the first two of which aimed at Google and Amazon, intended to make people think more about data in the age of internet behemoths. Moreover, it’s a bit funny hearing Facebook complain about scraping of personal data that is quasi-public."
I believe (Score:2, Informative)
This is illegal in pretty much every country on earth who has laws, it's called identity theft, making false profiles on behalf of someone is without doubt the stupidest idea I've ever heard of when trying to make a point. And on top of that state that "you can contact us if you want your profile removed". No scrubs, it should say "you can contact us if you want us to have your picture and profile on the lamest site of the century".
sounds like Zucky's "FaceMash" program (Score:5, Informative)
Porn star profiles (Score:4, Informative)
When I was a member of Yahoo Personals, I was always sure to report users who had photos of famous porn stars for their profiles. Then I found out that Yahoo was responsible for the fake profiles:
http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2007/08/30/yahoo-class-action-lawsuit-settled/ [wordpress.com]
Apparently, dating sites are still playing the same old game.
Re:What comes around... (Score:5, Informative)
No, this is how it started:
According to The Harvard Crimson, the site was comparable to Hot or Not, and "used photos compiled from the online facebooks of nine houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the 'hotter' person".
Mark Zuckerberg co-created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room.
To accomplish this, Zuckerberg hacked into the protected areas of Harvard's computer network, and copied the houses' private dormitory ID images. Harvard at that time did not have a student "facebook" (a directory with photos and basic information). Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online.
From Wiki, with sources linked on it.
/ And seriously slashdot, still no italics? WTF.
Re:That's a lot of photos (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't photos copyrighted?
Not necessarily.
Incorrect. All works which are copyrightable, ARE copyrighted the moment they are created, including photography. No exceptions. You do not need to register or claim copyright in any way; it is yours exclusively by default. You hold all rights unless you have explicitly granted those rights to others. You need do nothing to reserve all rights to yourself. Public display does not grant public license. (It never ceases to amaze me that people still claim "you put it on the Internet so it's public domain"... those people either also probably still believe the Earth is flat or are shooting off their mouths to try to justify illegal and unethical behavior.)
That being said, when you upload info or a photo to Facebook, you are granting Facebook many rights (it's part of the terms of service). Facebook doesn't outright own your photos, but you have granted them a perpetual nonexclusive license to use those photos.
However, that doesn't allow sites not affiliated with Facebook to use the photos on their own site (though deep linking kinda-sorta skirts that). You haven't given Facebook the right to sublicense your copyrighted materials to unaffiliated third parties. Additionally, if a third-party site implies that the "scraped" users are in any way voluntarily endorsing or participating in the third-party site, or are attaching false statements to the taken profiles (i.e. "I'm looking for a date"), that's a textbook case of fraud as defined by the law (a false statement of a material fact, knowledge on the part of the fraudster that the statement is untrue, intent on the part of the fraudster to deceive the alleged victim, justifiable reliance by the defrauded person on the statement, and injury to the alleged defrauded person as a result. Definition paraphrased from http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/fraud [thefreedictionary.com])
All that being said, it's funny as hell that Facebook, the number one mass purveyor of exploitative privacy-compromises, is suddenly up in arms about getting as good as it gives. Karma's a bitch, ain't it, Zucky ol' bean?