Review Giant Hamfistedly Attempts to Befriend Social Networking Giant

Once again - another site trying to use social networking to collect marketing data. Yelp.com is a well-known online hub for user reviews of local businesses. I use it all the time.

One particularly weak aspect of Yelp is its social networking component. Yes - you must register to post reviews of your favorite restaurant or dog-sitter. You are required to display your real first name. And encouraged to use your real photo in your user icon. You can make friends on Yelp, but few do. For whatever reason, users are averse to socializing in this space.

In short, Yelp is a place to click around and read reviews... and not much more.

In the meantime, Facebook is fast becoming the monster with two heads. One of those heads is the social networking giant's long-term business goal to partner with other websites to share user data.

In this way, your web experience becomes hyper-personalized. You can "like" various websites or products on the web. And you are guided in your web usage by similar data coming in from your Facebook network of friends.

What does that mean in real life? Well, as of April 21, 2010, your personal Yelp account has been linked without your permission to your Facebook account. You were not notified of this change.

Let me break this down, in case the implications are not abundantly clear. This means as you use sites like Yelp, all of your actions on that site are tracked by Facebook. Your usage patterns are owned by Facebook. Friend suggestions pop up as you read reviews, pulling data from the friends on Facebook. Your Yelp reviews are automatically posted to your Facebook wall.

Why is this a problem? First, web users demand privacy online. They will go out of their way to ensure their experience remains anonymous unless they have granted specific permission.

Second, my aversion is unique to the cultural space occupied specifically by Facebook. Facebook has done the impossible -- it knows my real identity. It knows everything about me. Therefore, when I use Facebook's partner sites, my experience becomes compromised -- not partially, but completely. My web behavior becomes a function of my total personhood.

Third, in the case of Yelp, the invasion of privacy occurs in a space where I have not agreed to it. User permission is the turnkey component overlooked by sites like Facebook and Yelp.

This is something of a contemporary tragedy. The technology is good. The technology is rock solid. And the benefits to a marketer are so tantalizingly close they can undoubtedly taste it. The benefits to the user are less tangible. Imagine -- a company not only knowing what you're doing online, but knowing your age, school, location, gender, and interests.

Because Facebook already owns all the data on this site, they will also own information from partner sites.

The final offense is specific to Yelp. For all its best intentions, Yelp has evolved as a REVIEW site. I do not use Yelp to see notifications about my sorority sister with whom I have not spoken in years. That freaks me out. When Yelp attempts to force social networking into its business model, it ignores the way that users are interacting with the site. I have NO doubt user feedback was not a part of the negotiation process with Facebook.

I don't take issue with the technology. I protest the way the technology was integrated without permission. Sites like Yelp will come very quickly to not abuse the trust users have put in it when they offered their real names.

Users have been generous enough to share their lives with these websites, to take down the walls that separate their real selves from their online identities. This assimilation is an emotional experience. If that trust is compromised, they will react emotionally.

In short, the integration of Facebook and Yelp was wildly mishandled. Yelp should have sent a message to each of its members presenting the opportunity to opt in to Facebook. If I'd been asked, I probably would have agreed.

May I be one of many, many twenty-somethings who know how to fight for their privacy online. But may I also preach the "gospel of usage" -- integrating social networking into a space where users have not asked for it will be resented. And it will fail.

R.I.P. Google Buzz

Save Paper - Think Before Printing this E-mail

Is there anything so irritating as those little sign-off's on people's e-mail signature that advise you to "SAVE PAPER - THINK BEFORE YOU PRINT" or some variation thereof? First of all, who prints out their e-mail? I have honestly never seen this happen. And if it did, it would never be on the kind of scale that makes a difference to the vacuum of waste that constitutes a typical office.

Next, the warning usually corresponds to the sender's e-mail in particular, which is almost universally useless. I appreciate the environmentally conscientious sentiment, but that's all it is - a sentiment, a nod to a theoretically better way of behaving.

Wouldn't it be better to award offices designations they can advertise for their eco-friendly practices. I don't mean high-cost mechanical installations which can often violate union contracts, such as low-flush toilets. I am referring to everyday practices which can make a difference -- consolidating the operations of your office to operate more efficiently -- recycling bins, recycled paper, low-energy bulbs, WHATEVER -- you think of them.

Kleenex "Hand Towels"

"Your hands are only as clean as the towel you use to dry them... So why use the same towel over and over?"

Am I the only one who finds it patently unbelievable that Kleenex would DARE to unveil a product to revolutionize the hand towel by essentially suggesting American homes need to use paper towels in the bathroom in order to remain germ-free.

I was astonished that in the face of the green movement that Kleenex could possibly be so shameless. May God help us if this product takes off.

Return Path Education

I received an email from a Mr. Charles Williams today, promising me millions of dollars if I would only send him personal information. Newly unemployed, I took the opportunity to educate myself and did a little detective work on the spammer. Or scammer, since he's "phishing" for personal information.

He reveals a location in the email as well as a phone number! What if I called? From the original email:

Dear Partner,

I want to transfer ($17,300.000.00 ) seventen million three hundred thousand United States Dollars from here in Burkina Faso to overseas account.

1) I did a free email trace to find the location of the IP address of charleswilliams2@mail.mn - it turns out he is located in sunny Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital city. News to me. I couldn't find out any more about Charles without paying $1.95. When I have my millions, perhaps I will invest in that.

2) A few more clicks and I learned what any nerd probably already knew -- that Gmail or any mail server will reveal the electronic journey of all email messages if you click on the button to the right of the reply button -- "show original." You'll arrive at some confusing-looking code...This is called the email "header" -- What is an email header -- The headers contain information about the routing of the email and the originating IP of the email: "At most, you can get the originating IP and the computer name that sent the email. The originating IP can be looked up to determine from where the email was sent. IP address location information DOES NOT contain your street address or phone number. It will most likely determine the city and the ISP the sender used."

3) This information was a bit more of a puzzle to a novice. I repeatedly saw another email address in play -- the "return-path" was linked to a Hotmail - jhyrds29@msn.com. According to a handy tech site, "You’ll notice that there are several Received From’s in the message header. This is because the message header contains the IP addresses of all of servers involved in routing that email to you."

The "reply-to" email was where any personal response would be directed. The "return-path" email is where any bouncebacks would be directed. For example, if you are using an email program like constant contact to launch an e-newsletter to hundreds of contacts but do not wish to receive info about which email addresses are erroneous, the return-path address would field all automatic response or error messages.

4) The originator of this email was:

Return-Path: jhyrds29@msn.com
Received: from user-85c621c774 ([196.28.247.208]) by BLU0-SMTP6.blu0.hotmail.com over TLS secured channel with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.4675).


Screenshot of E-mail Header


5) Using the same email trace service, Jhyrds29@msn.com could be traced via IP to Redmond, WA -- which on the map looked like it would be a great place to go hiking. This was unhelpful. I did not understand whether this was some kind of "exchange" point for the U.S. electronically. The spammer was definitely not American.

6) Using information from the "Received" field, the originating IP address was 196.28.247.208. With the free email trace service, I was astonished to find this sender had not lied about his location. He is indeed located in Burkina Faso, a land-locked nation in Africa. WTF!

7) More mysteries remain... Where does the phone number lead? What is the Hotmail address and why is it linked to Washington state? I had a friend of a friend start communicating with these kinds of spammers -- encouraging them to share their stories with him. The idea makes me nervous, personally, but it is interesting.