<waving> Hi, Big Brother

A moderately interesting article in Wired describes another "Big Brother is watching" facility. The emphasis of this article is on the CIA, but the concept is that companies need to tap into "open source intelligence" to see what their customers are saying about them.

This serves to highlight what anyone who blogs already knows – anyone could read what you say. But it's not just random . . . many companies spend a fair amount of effort searching out comments about the company, its products, or its policies. When I posted the article on online backup a few days ago, I received "comments" on the article from companies that provide online backup service. I didn't approve them because the purpose of my blog is not to be a platform for advertisements, but it illustrates how companies monitor what's being said about them and about their industry.

I'm not criticizing these companies, or the CIA, for harvesting the information created continually by bloggers and other on the Internet as long as they limit their perusal to material that is intended to be public. It's a cost/benefit decision like any other – how much does it cost versus how valuable the information is. But it's yet another reminder that what is posted in blogs is a little more public than we sometimes wish.