I’ve been watching the furor over the RapLeaf controversy for the past couple of days, really struggling over whether or not to weigh in. If you’ve already been following the controversy, drop down to the next subhead, “The RapLeaf Problem”…

We are the ones who are putting this information “out there.” If we don’t want to be marketed based on that information, then I don’t think we can’t blame those companies that are simply compiling and packaging information that is already public.

Rapleaf’s only part of the problem–there’s also the idea of “lifestreams” (as Steve Rubel wrote about)

and there have been other marketing related services that have been gathering info and selling it for awhile. Back in December I wrote about Umbria’s “Umbria Connect” program, which was/is filtering blogs, gathering up the urls, and then selling the urls (in lots of 25) to marketers. You can check it out here: http://www.umbrialistens.com/products/connect.php

So, what we’re seeing with Rapleaf and others is addressing the needs and desires of marketers–which then, in many ways, impacts our privacy. Because the competition for customers is fierce, and because there’s massive fear of life online (connected to loss of brand control) marketers want to go deeper into our online lives…the rhetoric being to serve us better….

but is that really what’s going on? or is there something else to all of it?

maybe there is.

Yet perhaps we should think more about the “lifestreams” children might be creating online, just as much as we are concerned about our adult “lifestreams”. They’re more vulnerable than us in so many ways.

Marketers will get our information from loads and loads of places–some companies are going to make it easier for them to get it.