New "Big Brother" strategy for credit ratings: Monitor social media for personal details

[woo me with science]

Last edited Sun Jun 10, 2012, 12:00 AM - Edit history (1)

Yes, this is in Germany, but it's their *largest* credit rating agency. Watch for this to come here, too...

Do you associate with anyone who is not "credit worthy"? Or could you be one of the undesirables, lowering your friends' credit scores by your very presence on their Facebook pages? Will you "unfriend" those who are struggling financially, or who go to Occupy protests, for your own protection?






http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/07/net-us-germany-privacy-idUSBRE8560V920120607

German credit agency plan stirs "Big Brother" fear
By Sophie Duvernoy
BERLIN | Thu Jun 7, 2012 11:05am EDT

(Reuters) - Germany's biggest credit agency stirred up concerns about data privacy on Thursday after announcing it planned to gather information from social media websites to help measure users' creditworthiness.
....
"Schufa cannot become the Big Brother of the business world," Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner told the Munich Merkur newspaper. "Social networks should not be systematically mined for sensitive data that would influence the credit ratings of clients."
....
NDR said Schufa would gather data on relationships, listed interests, addresses and other private details from a range of online media sources including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

"Web-generated information will be linked to other information through Schufa and evaluated from a business perspective," NDR quoted extracts from Schufa's project proposal as saying.

[meeksgeek]

1. Easy solution...

"Friend" all the GOP profiles you can. Obviously associating yourself with Newt Gingrich would be good for your credit.

Right?

[woo me with science]

2. Kick

[WillyT]

3. K & R !!!

[BrendaBrick]

4. Yep. Just a matter of time....

still one more factor of some kind of loosely (and falsely) interpreted *information* gathered by some damn yahoo somewhere in which to mine/collect, categorize and capitalize upon and attach some kind of creative *score* to (based on what...exactly?) and try to pawn it off as some sort of legitimate indication/reflection upon said subjects as yet another new, *serious* factor of a FICO score or something...as if it actually means anything? Guilty by association/non-association? PLEEZE!

Yep. Just one more inch in the sand slyly nudging itself towards yet another false *attribute* and all the while dissolving yet another degree of our constitutional rights....but shush - let's do it anyway and see if anyone notices? Lots of money to be made here in this new *market identification.* Afterall, this opens up a whole new market of personal information exploitation based on nothing more than mere speculation at best...pure, steaming BS at worst...yet actually touted and considered serious by someone's nefarious calculations.

[woo me with science]

5. "opens up a whole new market of personal information exploitation

Last edited Sun Jun 10, 2012, 02:29 AM - Edit history (1)

based on nothing more than mere speculation at best...pure, steaming BS at worst...yet actually touted and considered serious by someone's nefarious calculations"...

...with the effect of destroying lives and financial reputations and options of its victims.

Thank you for putting it better than I did.

[BrendaBrick]

8. you're welcome

but really, just a slight variation on a theme you already started...(coupled with the fact that the older I get...the less I beat around the bush and censor myself anymore.)

[Brigid]

6. And people wonder why I won't join Facebook.

[Bolo Boffin]

7. That will really tank your credit rating.

What are you trying to hide? What a credit rating agency can't see, they'll assume is bad.



It is sarcasm, right?

[SoutherDem]

9. I need to friend Romney

He would raise my credit score greatly. or I would lower his, sounds like a win/win.

[woo me with science]

10. Kick

[HopeHoops]

11. I suppose just BELONGING to DU knocks off about 200 points.

We're all "libruls", ya know.

[Franker65]

12. Too much

No wonder the Germans are obsessed with online privacy, more than other people. Personally, I'd say this is going too far.