TMI
There. I said it. There is simply too much information on the open web and increasingly its garbage, dirty bathwater, polluted oceans, whatever metaphor you wish to use. Just ask Mr. Zuckerberg who is apologizing for violent content.
Saying crowdsourcing will solve the problem and content will ‘self-correct’ is largely nonsense adding to the noise. There needs to be better ways to correct info on the open web especially when the information is about you.
It’s ironic that a woman whose career rests fully at the intersection of tech and information going back to IBM, Dataquest/ACNielsen/D&B (what an amazing era!) Teltech, and American Management Association, is complaining about TMI.
And that was before 30 years building a business focused on providing intelligence about tech and information. One of our services used to be called InfoAboutInfo and it made those from outside the industry experience head-spin.
“You do what? For whom?”
I still have friends who wonder if I work for the CIA. Truth be told we once did but not that way. They were an Outsell client along with about 30 other federal agencies who procure or distribute information in or outside their organizations. But I digress because thankfully today in the world of DOGE we are safely out of government crosshairs.
I get we have GDPR, CCPA, and everything else on the planet trying to save us from ourselves. It seems most of the ‘list’ guys on the open web or the ‘find people’ gals, or the bad actors who make personal information available or get hacked (Equifax listening??) don’t manage information well and don’t make it easy for anyone to a) take themselves down or b) correct what’s incorrect about themselves.
I have written about bad data in customer service settings or having to do all the work in a sales context but now it’s about all the bad info on the open web that we are playing whack-a-mole with and losing just like with emails in our inbox which are proliferating at lightning speed thanks to ChatGPT and its brethren. Marketers heady with power are polluting email while new LinkedIn has its own challenges. Becoming a pseudo-Facebook at best-worst and another sewer of its own at worst-worst.
Last night, I did a very simple search — I can’t tell you what it was, but it had three words. And out came every personal detail you can imagine including several versions of my name, all prior real estate transactions, my current address, home details including equity, children’s names (incomplete and partially wrong,) with two of our four missing and so on and so forth including every public record you could imagine. I get it. I’m in this business.
What I don’t get is work address — wrong again. The UK thinks we’ve dissolved our company. Wrong again. FastPeopleSearch’s site? So, so, so much so wrong including:
- Anthea P Stratigos
- Anthea C Stratugtgos
- Anthe Stratigos
Nope, nope, and nope.
And I cannot correct it or erase it with ease. If I do I have to call a service and pay for the privilege. No click a button to opt out. That would be against the rules of the consumer. We wonder why teenagers can’t turn it off, little one’s brains are being hardwired for screens with indelible and still unknown consequence, though many becoming clear. And we wonder why people have anxiety. Well because anyone on the open web can knock on my front door. Who wouldn’t have anxiety over that!?
I could say there ought to be laws against it but with the tech-bros cozying up it’ll never happen. Many industry associations are asleep at the switch. There is so, so, so much good stuff out on the web one can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater (dirty and all!) It’s just to wade through the bad stuff to get to the good stuff is becoming completely untenable. Case in point, my colleague sent a YouTube video about AI sounding human while human created content is being mistaken for AI. Through the looking glass or what!?
I am calling my trusted colleagues at Aidentified. I’ll check in with Randy our VP & Industry Lead who covers people/company/contact info. I am going to find out my options. I’ll let ChatGPT identify the services I can use. The DMA? Bah! So yesterday. But I am going to find out my options short of making my online presence disappear. Who knows maybe that’s the only answer. I can’t say stay tuned because for that to happen there will be nothing to tune into. What a lovely challenge.