A Snoop's Dream

November 8, 2010

Anders Albrechtslund’s article entitled “Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance” contains a subsection called “A Snoop’s Dream.” The title of this section alone is representative of the unconventional and downright creepy capabilities used by individuals on online social networks. One important statement made by Albrechtslund is “mediated publics are obviously not private.” The content on the Internet is hardly ever “erased” and with a little bit of direction and persistence, it can often be uncovered. Most people do not realize that more often than not their online activities are never as “safe” or “anonymous” as they may think.

For the last two summers I have worked for a Web Hosting company doing primarily marketing work. Part of my job also consisted of performing competitive intelligence online in order to further direct the company’s sales and marketing strategies. More often than not I was able to find pertinent information regarding the downfalls of our competitors by simply browsing industry-related forums. In one instance, I found a blog post made by a game-site administrator complaining about the lack of uptime provided by their current host… Within a week this game site became our newest client.

The amount of information that I was able to find was borderline scary. I used RSS feeds, blogs, forums, Twitter and others to monitor the “virtual movements” of all competitors and even important clients who may have interacted online with other competitors, be it recently or far in the past. Any unknown/new information may have been useful so it was important that nothing was overlooked. In a sense, I was a “snoop.” I lurked in the shadows of the Internet and exploited any information I could find that may have benefitted my company. While I do not feel that my actions were unconventional or “creepy,” there were times where I questioned the morality of my actions.

This experience has made me wonder why people’s filters seem to be eliminated online. Why is so much important information posted all over the web? Is it ignorance? Or is it the false sense of anonymity and safety that the Internet provides its users?