VentureBeat

P-Air said:

Their opt-out policy and the requirement that you prove who you are if someone co-opts your profile have the makings of poor privacy policies which may accelerate the legislative issues around this topic. Perhaps that’s a good thing, but I can’t see that they’ve done something here that their target audience would be happy with. It may not be much of an issue rolling out here in Silicon Valley (though it will be interesting how folks in the higher income neighborhoods take to it), but when they get to midwestern towns, people just might get a bit too freaked out. On the bright side, white pages revenues may soar as people look to get unlisted fast :)

Tim Jones said:

The requirement of proving who you are will be a big obstacle for adoption. I went to Fatdoor and before I was allowed to do anything else it required me to submit my real name and address? Why would I want to give this information to some unknown start-up? I won’t give this info to Google, let alone Fatdoor.

How many people are going to get beyond this first step? Not me. The key to making social networking work is getting lots of users on there. If there’s a huge obstacle placed in their way on page 1, how many will be motivated enough to continue?

RK said:

I totally agree with Tim Jones comments above, this will not work, also Privacy is going to be big issue. People will not some unknown startup personal info such as Drivers License # , these guys must be really smoking the rope, may be they ought post everyone’s credit report on top of there house maps, and disclose all there personal on them. so some nut case, chase you down! I am little surprised the founder wants to display his entire family including kids! May be this guy has not heard about all the crazy people out there!

Raj Abhyanker said:

We have implemented a number of privacy features on Fatdoor such as :

1. Address and phone numbers are masked on Fatdoor for people you do not know (e.g., neighbors).

2. Users can mark themselves private, so that they are not searchable on Fatdoor.

3. Our users are in full control of their profile; they decide what to share and what not to share, including a map on their profile

4. Each post/edit is publicly attributed to its writer on Fatdoor.

5. Users can make their profile visible only to friends and family.

6. Fatdoor is not for kids, we do not allow kids on Fatdoor (see :http://www.fatdoor.com/content/privacy.aspx )

7. We are advised by world class privacy experts such as Tara Lemmey (Homeland Security privacy committee) and Lauren Gelman (Stanford Law School)

Feel free to ping me if you have further questions.

Kind regards,

Raj Abhyanker

CEO of Fatdoor

RK said:

Interesting input, So Raj why do you think people will want to give you there DL# to talk to there neighbors? I do not find it compelling enough myself. BTW I do not buy-in what your World class advisers have to say, Seems they are out of touch. one works for Govt they can demand these sort of info to give people access, question is there is difference between your company and Govt, unless you are part of TSA or something.

leigh said:

I cannot believe that there is no privacy anymore in the world. What scares me about this is not the obstacles to signing up since crazy people sign up for all kinds of things. What scares me is that info on you will be available without your consent, even when you are unaware of fatdoor. For someone who has had to move to get away from a stalker, this may be life and death information readily available to your stalker. By the time someone has figured out this information is out there, an abusive ex-spouse, crazed fan, or child molester has already located you or your child. Get ready for some unbelievable law suits. This is taking things too far. If people want to voluntarily join up that is one thing, but this invades each citizens reasonable expectation of privacy and it won’t be difficult for a lawyer to prove forseeability and causation should something bad happen to someone as a result. Narrow the scope of your plan to entirely voluntary sign and you may have a social networking success.

Neal said:

Love the comments — clearly made by people who are not in the target audience. The concerns are valid but I think users will conclude that the benes outweigh the small risks of abuse by Fatdoor. I think Fatdoor will be a wild success. Good luck guys! I’ll be knocking on your door tomorrow when you launch.

rk said:

So Neal explain who are the target audience? Is it people on Mars, who would not mind sharing there personal info! seems like a pretty broad statement

Raj Abhyanker said:

Since we do not expose address and phone number, there is less location identifiable information on Fatdoor than there is in the White Pages or through an online search using a major search engine.

Raj

Raj Abhyanker said:

ps. we do not ask users to provide DL# to sign up. I am unsure where that came from. raj

PK said:

Seeing a site like this pop up raise serious alarm bells AND I find outrageously insulting! I have to manually opt-out to become hidden/private?! Such arrogance. People should OPT-IN to be made public to the world. “Oh, but wait - that information is already available”, I hear the naysayers bleet (eg. http://www.whitepages.com/10001/log_feature/pers_search_w_email/search/FindPerson?firstname_begins_with=1&firstname=Raj&name=Abhyanker+&city_zip=&state_id=CA&default_listing=phone&extra_listing=mixed). True, but you need to know what you are looking for (poor analogy: think of Jack Sparrow’s compass from Pirates of the Caribbean). It’s available if a person wants to find another person - eg. stalked, ex-partner, etc. It’s currently obfuscated enough unless a specific amount of information is previously known (eg. a target individual). To reverse-geo-person-code, I believe, is going to far with regards to our personal privacy. This is saying “i have no or very very little information (eg. a postcode, street or city), so tell me the answer. (eg. people @ locations)”. Using the poor Pirates annalogy above, it’s like saying, here’s the map of the world and here’s all the treasure … even if you weren’t looking for it. No go! hunt! pillage! .. i mean .. learn! *cough*

By EASILY accessing/pinpointing a geo-location to an individual (what i call reverse-geo-people-coding) WITHOUT PRIOR CONSENT is what I believe is a gross outrage to my privacy. I have no problem that governments can find my location in a heartbeat for I’m under the illusion that if/when they do that, it’s by the book/law, etc. If i opt-in to declare my location … sure! more power to you! It’s the fact that my mum or dad or sister or brother who are not netsavy are now relatively easily _locatable_ by non-lawabiding people .. . the 1% and 2% people of our society. Lets not start about the fact that people can see who i vote (voted) for and my hobbies, etc? so rude :(

MySpace, etc is successful because people are opting IN to say ‘Hi, this is me .. lets digital-socialise’. Those people partaking in social networking on similar sites are defining what they want to expose, when and how much. Opting-IN is the proper moral way to handle such business models, not OPT-OUT.

Oh - and I love the idea that i can take away someone’s identity … especially when the REAL person (who has to be net savy to actually find the site, log in, etc) will then have to send some _real_ documents to some unknown website to prove _themselves_ because someone else was being malicious? please.

This site was made by lawyers to generate all the work that will be coming their way. They are the real winners :) +1 lawyers.

@Neal: Please state who you think this is targeted towards? Mums and Dads? GenX / GenY? All the people on MySpace, etc over the age of “kids” (quote from above). I’m under the impression it’s the people on MySpace, facebook, etc.

I hope you still have some of that VC captial lying around … you’ll be needing it pretty soon for all the legal battles that could arise.

@ Tim Jones and RK: i hear ya guys. +1.

Do we have a new contender for TC’s DeadPool? (http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/deadpool) :)

My vote has been cast.

John Billson said:

PK, I don’t think you know what you are talking about. did you know that one of the most popular features on whitepages.com and google mymaps is to find ‘neighbors nearby’. I am active in my community as a member of the Rotary club, my PTA, my Block Watch and my Church group. I am looking forward to this tool opening up in my city of Boise Idaho. I think they have struck the right balance. I use myspace or facebook, as I like meeting people face to face. I’ve had similar ideas for something like this for a long time. Its long overdue because the only things we have to communicate in my neighborhood is email lists, door to door hand deliver of newsletters, and the telephone. All our highly inefficient. Its a sad world that many like you are afraid of the neighborhood you live in. Why don’t you just move?

John Billson said:

ps. correction. I don’t use myspace and facebook. I find them too juvenile and sex oriented. I will use fatdoor however, as it seems to offer a lot more for the community groups I am involved in.

Marriane Moore said:

PK, you are an idiot. there is a major fallacy in your reasoning. Don’t you think the stalker, exspouse etc know your name? By masking address and phone number they seem to be on the right track. the people you are afraid will have an easier time finding you on google people search, whitepages.com or with mymaps than through this.. furthermore, if someone has something bad to say, there are a lot of other forums that seem more anonomous than fatdoor (blogs, myspace) to call people out. Community policing is the way of the future, I am looking forward to trying this tool out. I think your beef should be targeted at the Internet in general, not this site. At least, this site seems to be proactively taking steps to protect users privacy. what an idiot you are…

MARRIANE MOORE said:

Wired just posted an article about security and privacy on Fatdoor. See :

http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/05/fatdoor_ceo_tal.html

PK said:

It’s a shame John and Marriane have misunderstood my post. I’ll first reply in general then I’ll refer to quotes and respond accordingly.

My main concern was targeted at 2 areas:
1) The ability to find detailed personal information without the need to have some initial specific search criteria. (reverse-geo-person-coding).
2) The ‘OPT-OUT’ requirement.

To ‘find neighbours’, etc. I need to know a specific area/street. That is at least SOME type of obfuscation. Not much, but some. If I find neighbors for some random street or a street I know but have no relationship with (eg. i drive past it every day to work) I get some information but it limited in content (compared to FD). But once i don’t need to have a particular starting point, I feel that suddenly nothing is private any more. The limited privacy protection that existed due to the information being located in separate information silo’s (poor protection, but still _some_ obfuscated protection none-the-less) has now been stripped back. Added to this, my personal information has also been opened up to the public more so than ever before, not just where i live or how to contact me. Is nothing sacred any more? I feel like we’ve now created a new right on the bills of rights: the right to know _everything_ about a person or thy neighbor.

Finally, if i wanted to become private i need to OPT-OUT. This is the other point if believe is misguided and offensive. My information is exactly that - mine. I would like to believe that I have some form of ownership over that - who i voted for, what mags i like, religious beliefs, etc. If a stranger came up to me and said ‘Hi, i’m your neighbor from two doors up. I noticed you also voted for XXX and also like YYY. Same here.. blah blah blah’ .. I’d be upset because what I value as sacred (my personal information) is now in the public domain. A background check I hope doesn’t tell you who i voted for, what church i visit or what magazines i purchase.

I feel that the mix of information being so freely accessible at one single point has gone too far. I feel like strangers can now enter my home (virtually) without prior consent. If they knew where i lived … to me that was like they were on street looking at my house. Now that they can find where i live by just browsing a map AND know information about me I feel is like they have stopped off the street and entered my property.

—

JohnB: “did you know that one of the most popular features on whitepages.com and google mymaps is to find ‘neighbors nearby’.”

Er yes I did and even posted a link to a how to find a particular person on whitepages. The Find neighbors is generally the next link. What you are saying is that because WP has this information then it’s ok for others to also have this information available, irrespective of _what_ they will do with that information (eg. mash it up with other data sources). I think that because WP are doing it, other sites should not do it if they impinge on my privacy more so.

JohnB: ” I am active in my community as a member of the Rotary club, my PTA, my Block Watch and my Church group. I am looking forward to this tool opening up in my city of Boise Idaho”.

Hmm. Could you state the reason why you are interested in using this tool, when it ‘opens up’ you city? Are you looking for other like minded people to subscribe to the organisations you belong to? By easily scouring streets and subdivisions you could directly target *cough* neighbours *cough* that could be potential customers/subscribers/members?

JonhB: “the only things we have to communicate in my neighborhood is email lists, door to door hand deliver of newsletters, and the telephone”

Bzzzt. Incorrect. There are other sites already out there that handle this type of thing with a lot more honour and respect to the community that FD. While Myspace etc are social networking sites (non-geo related) there are also other geo-related sites i’ve stumbled across that tackle this situation and have been for many months now. FD is not new with regards to that concept.

JohnB: “Its a sad world that many like you are afraid of the neighborhood you live in. Why don’t you just move?”

It’s upsetting that you somehow thought I said that, for i did not :) In fact I actually love where i live. That, my friend, has nothing to do with the debate at hand - the business model of FD and the amount of personal information in the public domain. Tsk Tsk.

Now to Marriane :)

MarrianeM: “Don’t you think the stalker, exspouse(sic) etc know your name”.

Sure do! So much so, i even noted that in my initial argument, in my first reply post. I said that to highlight the fact that what FD are doing is not new - even you stated the other methods of locating a person. Like John, you also missed my point. FD are making it possible to find people without having a specific starting location. If wanted to ‘find neighbors’ or ‘find ex-spouse’ i would have to have some starting point. A street name. An ex-spouse name. Something. FD says ‘click on map anywhere (no starting point/information) and we’ll blow your mind away by exposing all this information that is sitting out there in various forms’.

MarrianeM: “By masking address and phone number they seem to be on the right track.”

Masking address? Um .. they live on the street where their icon is located. Hello! And i would want to call you to say that i’m going to hurt you, fraudulently steal your identity or do something nasty with the personal information I have no gathered? Please. Balance is not having my privacy exposed to the public. Balance is not telling the world where i live and what i like/do without prior concent .. all in one.

MarrianeM: “if someone has something bad to say, there are a lot of other forums that seem more anonomous(sic) than fatdoor (blogs, myspace) to call people out”

Um .. yeah .. and your point? From what i can gather, those sites are fine. I might not partake in their activities but I don’t feel like my privacy has been stripped back or made publically available (which I’m trying to highlight as something that needs to be seriously taken as something sacred). I fail so see the relevance of your comment.

MarrianeM: “Community policing is the way of the future”

Whoa - alarm bells … hold it right there. I hope you understand what community policing means. It’s a philosiphy that the _police_ take a more opened minded, community/citizen approach to problem solving as opposed to a reactionary manner. Wiki has an ok description of it here(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_policing). That said, I read your statement (with respect with your entire comment) as saying ‘Persons/citizens in the community should be taking more responsibility and helping to police the communities they dwell within’. I so hope that is not what you ment because if that’s the case, we have more problems than FD. If it’s not, then yes, CP is a good direction for the future … but once again I fail to see the relevance of that with respect to FD and personal information freely accessibly in the public domain.

MarrianeM: “I think your beef should be targeted at the Internet in general, not this site. At least, this site seems to be proactively taking steps to protect users privacy”

*Sigh* Not at all. With the logic you’re stating, you would believe that I also think that that all people do on the internet is download adult content and infringe on copyright? I feel that your statement lacks an open mind to make a sweaping judgment as such. My ‘beef’ is with how much personal information is available from a single source without prior concent. (ack! this is sounding like a broken record). If this site was tkaing steps to protect a user, they won’t be having an OPT-OUT policy with public information available BY DEFAULT.

MarrianM: “what an idiot you are…”
Have a nice day.

——–
All arguments have flaws and the flaws in mine, which I feel people missed, could be:

1) You can only see people 5 miles (radius) from the location of ‘you’. This means that i can only learn about a smallish number of people in my community. I originally assumed that i could see all over the country. The wired link above corrected this poor assumption.

2) Users can edit all profile information. I can remove the fact that i vote for XXX, etc. Of course, i can also modify someone elses (yes, it lists who edited what / version histories). This, though, comes under the OPT-OUT debate, though.

3) It’s nieve to think that we have any privacy any more. We need to get used to it and embrace it - if you’re so worried .. maybe you have something to hide?

leigh said:

PK, I totally agree with your point of view. There is no legitimate reason to conduct this business as opt-out instead of opt-in other that luring members with information they shouldn’t have. Obviously John B has never been the subject of a stalker. One doesn’t have to know a person’s name to cultivate an obsession. With all the cross referencing and info that is available on the internet, particularly if you are in the public eye at all, an inadvertant listing in the phone book (which happens all the time when you request to be unlisted) is enough…suppose weird stalker guys who have nothing better to do than browse through various neighborhoods use the info they find on Fatdoor to search out what a person looks like, what they do for a living, spouses, children, boyfriends etc. Fixations can easily cascade quickly and then they know pretty much where you live and can hang out until they come across you physically. Take it from someone who has been stalked, you can love your neighborhood and feel safe and be an optimist and still have your life ruined or threatened by such people who generally have a sickness and no other occupation than to seek out victims of their obsessions.

It is rather convenient that business owners choose to base their business plans on the assumption that all people that come into contact with their product are sane and heavenly creatures.

If you look carefully at the history of products liability law, you will see that the area that business have been most screwed on is where there was a forseeable risk and an identifiable and reasonable way to deter that risk. MAKE YOUR BUSINESS OPT-IN and leave us our homes to expose.

What if you own several homes and don’t really want everyone in your neighborhood to know your real- estate profile. I know that information is readily available to those who want it, but there is a vast difference between someone actively seeking out that information and it be handy and obvious for all who aren’t even looking.

This is an outrage.

Marriane Moore said:

JK,

I still think you are an idiot. Don’t you know that virtually ALL search engines, and street level and 3D maps of Google, Microsoft Virtual Earth, are ALL OPT OUT (with NO easy way of doing so!). What is worse is in those sytems there is NO easy way to opt out without emailing a giant company that may not even listen to you. I signed up on fatdoor yesterday (i live in sunnyvale) and I am impressed. You can opt yourself off the map right from your MyFatdoor page.

Rather than pointing the finger at a small startup giving you an opportunity to control your privacy, your real enemy should be Google, Msft, yahoo, freedom of speech, freedom of press, democracy and the Internet in general. For example, lot more personal is shown on a general search of your name on google, yahoo, and msn. (NO way to opt out). In addition, on the maps by Google and MSFT themselves, such as how big your house is, where all the entry doors and windows are to your house, how big is your backyard, you sunbathing in your backyard, what cars you drive and good ways to access your street, etc. What’s worse, Msft and Yahoo are scouring each and every newspaper and blog in the country for the latest personal information every 3P minutes or so. Shouldn’t you be more afraid of that?

Unlike Google and MSFT, fatdoor gives the opportunity back to the user and local neighborhood what is displayed and what isn’t on the map.

Also, if you think Myspace is a substitute for fatdoor, you are on a different planet. there are no monikers or screen names on fatdoor from what I see. Only real people and neighbors validated in the system.

I think you need to give up the Internet and go live in a cave in Yosemite.

Marriane Moore said:

ps. someone can ‘discover’ what the rich neighborhoods are to rob with nice cars using google street views and msft virtual earth. they can’t do this on fatdoor because of its radius limits and privacy controls. they can easily use people search from google,yahoo and msft to find names, lots of personal info including addresses in that discovered neighborhood without EVER leaving google or msn live. they can’t do that on fatdoor, and their actions on the site are tracked.

Unlike the msft, yahoo and google giant capitalist pigs as you probably see them (do you hate freedom?) Fatdoor gives the power back to the user. you should join the communist party.

leigh said:

Just because Google and Yahoo are corporate capitalist giants with no regard for the privacy of citizens, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t express our disregard for what this business is doing. As I recall, that was the argument southern slave owners made for keeping slavery ‘well everybody else has them and if I get rid of my slaves, somebody else is gonna use them”

It seems to me Ms. Moore is angling for some remuneration here…awefully passionate about how great the company is- part owner maybe?

User said:

MARRINE MOORE,

I think you should mind your language when replying to the feedback of other users. Don’t be so offensive. There are other ways to reply then just calling other people idiot. You know who you are.

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