Ryan Calo, a residential fellow at the Center for Internet & Society, talks to Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio about online privacy in light of Blippy.com, a site that shares financial transactions within a social network:
The Internet start-up Blippy.com keeps track of someone's spending habits online, much like Twitter keeps track of random thoughts. Users register a credit card with the site, and every transaction on that card is displayed to friends on Blippy.
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STEVE INSKEEP, host:
All right. Now, while Facebook might ask what's on your mind, imagine a Web site that asks: What are you buying?
That's our last word in business today.
Blippy.com is a new Web site where you register your credit card number, and every purchase you make with that card will be posted online.
From member station KALW, Martina Castro has some of the buzz on Blippy.
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Mr. RYAN CALO (Consumer Privacy Project, Stanford Center for Internet and Society): Nineteen-dollars-and-seventy-cents at Szechuan Cafe. He spent $407.45 at Banana Republic. Wow.
CASTRO: That's Ryan Calo, reading from Kaplan's Blippy account. Calo runs the Consumer Privacy Project at Stanford Center for Internet and Society. He says this isn't just good fun.
Mr. CALO: We're increasingly living in this society where our information's out there and its being used, but we dont quite know how and why.
CASTRO: Calo notes that Blippy's privacy policy reserves the right to use account information for marketing. The company won't go into the specifics of its business model, but it does point out you can use a different credit card if you want to keep certain purchases private.
- Date Published:03/09/2010
- Original Publication:National Public Radio (NPR)