November 5, 2012

Obama campaign: "Ann -- This is cool: You can see exactly how many people named Ann have already voted."

"Take a look at that. Then share it with your friends so they can see how many people with their names have voted, too -- and look up their polling place. Bottom line: We need every Ann -- and everyone else, too -- to make it out to the polls to support President Obama."

Another email trying to leverage social media. This one provides a link to the Obama campaign website with the supposedly enticing teaser "How many people with your name have voted already?" To get the answer, you have to click on a button that takes you to a page where you're supposed to log into Facebook, and the fine print says:
THIS APP WILL RECEIVE:
Your basic info
Your email address (althouse@wisc.edu)
Your profile info: birthday, likes and location
Your photos
Friends' profile info: birthdays, likes and locations
Photos shared with you
And: "By proceeding, you agree to Obama 2012's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy ..."

So if you fell for the fun idea of seeing your damned name connected to a number and impulsively logged into Facebook, you just gave the campaign all that personal information and you agreed to... who knows what?

Active Collection: Personal information may be collected in a number of ways when you visit our Sites. We collect certain information you voluntarily provide to us, such as when you create an account or a profile, make a donation, make a purchase, send us an email or sign up to receive email or text message updates, fill out a form, connect through a social feed, sign up to be a volunteer or host an event, request information, apply for an internship, or use a voter registration form tool. Such information may include personal information, such as your name, mailing address, email address, phone number, geographic location, and credit card information. We may also collect demographic information you may voluntarily provide from time to time, such as in response to questionnaires and surveys, including gender, ethnicity, education, and interest information. If this information is tied to personally identifiable information, it will be treated as personal information. Personal and demographic information may also be collected if you provide such information in connection with creating a profile or group, leaving comments, posting blog comments or other content, sending an email or message to another user, or participating in any interactive forums or features on the Sites. In addition, from time to time we may collect demographic, contact or other personal information you provide in connection with your participation in surveys, contests, games, promotions, and other activities on the Sites. We may also obtain information from other sources and combine that with information we collect on our Sites.
Does that boldface say they are mining the text of email and messages sent on Facebook for personal information?

Ann — this is cool...

The future is cool. Big Brother loves you is cool.

48 comments:

Scott said...

Identity politics in extremis.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Apparently, it's a tactic proven effective on persons who click on teasers of the style "Ashley Olsen Shows Off Body in Tiny Bikini."

Anonymous said...

but what if i want to vote multiple times? is there someone who can help me with that?

clint said...

Of course, the real point of all this data gathering is so that Obama's ground game specialists will know what names to use when they vote the last few dozen times each towards the end of the polling day.

Drago said...

I've been watching alot of the democrat campaign commercials as well as listening closely to the dems reelection pitch.

The only question left I guess is this: Will Bill Clinton beat George W. Bush?

Drago said...

I've been watching alot of the democrat campaign commercials as well as listening closely to the dems reelection pitch.

The only question left I guess is this: Will Bill Clinton beat George W. Bush?

Dante said...

I realize this is off-topic, but I read the following in the Rasmussen daily tracking poll:

If the white turnout increases on Election Day, it will be very difficult for the president to win. If it decreases, it will be very difficult for him to lose. Rasmussen Reports currently estimates that white turnout will be similar to the 2008 totals. Black voters, however, are far more likely to have voted already than any other segment of the electorate.

I wonder if this were rewritten to say if Blacks and Hispanics vote more than white voters, if it would be racist?

Ann Althouse said...

@Mitchell the Bat That was the easiest-to-see-coming Rickroll in the history of (my reading of) the Internet.

Shanna said...

'Ann this is cool'. This sounds like it was written by a 6 year old.

Bob Ellison said...

Does "Ann" make for an identity group? The phoneme could be mistaken for an indefinite article, but that's not much. At least my name is a verb and a haircut.

"Penelope" works better, but that's not gonna be enough to win the election.

Michael The Magnificent said...

Be aware that on Facebook, you are not the customer, you are the product being sold.

ricpic said...

Wow, talk about lowest common denominator stuff. Reminds me of a kid who fills whole pages with his name as soon as he learns how to write. I guess the Obama campaign knows its target demographic.

Unknown said...

FB is evil. I barely overcame my revulsion to make an account there using my real name. Everything I can find to lock down on it is locked. I post nothing and give them no information apart from my name, which I revealed only so that relatives will friend me, allowing me to keep up with family news and remove my tag from any photos they post. What fools people are to salt that miserable data mine in the first place.

Michael Haz said...

Facists. Think about how much of your personal information the government will have when they assume controll of your health insurance and medical records.

And how that will be data mined by the government and campaigns who fear no legal restraints.

Seeing Red said...

I don't have a FB.

Chip S. said...

Coming to v. 2.0...

◊ Yes! I'd like to donate to Organizing for America.

◊ No, thanks. I prefer an IRS audit.

tim maguire said...

I pass on just about every neat-o game, quiz, or poll someone sends me on Facebook for just this reason. They're all scams to hoover up marketing information.

KCFleming said...

The political is personal.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

@Ann Althouse

tim maguire said...

Keep on your toes Eustace. Facebook resets your security settings periodically. Any time there is an update to Facebook's software, you need to go check because the default is always "everybody sees it."

campy said...

Think about how much of your personal information the government will have when they assume controll of your health insurance and medical records.

And why shouldn't the government have whatever info they want? We belong to them, after all.

chickelit said...

Seeing Red said...
I don't have a FB.

Nor do I. I am on Twitter though, which I suppose is next.

David said...

Creepy, but it probably works.

Seeing Red said...

Don't tweet either.

I'm Full of Soup said...

After Obama loses, I guess he will sell the email list to the highest bidder [Hillary Clinton!].

Renee said...

I fell for it and clicked the link. Didn't log onto Facebook though.

My favorite are the radio ad with Jay Z getting out the youth vote for Obama. He's 43 and worth 450 million dollars. Nothing addressing jobs, only that Obama gave him hope four years ago.

Seeing Red said...

Vodkapundit posted a robocall YT that was scary & funny.

Levi Starks said...

I got the same E-mail, and clicked it just to see if there was actually any Information behind it. But as usual it was a scam like everything else from this administration.

Bryan C said...

"Dean ANN,

Hi, ANN. This is Barry. I've been thinking about you a lot lately, ANN. In fact, I see that you've recently been talking about me on Facebook..."

Levi Starks said...

Oh the things I would say if i thought he really was listening.

Caroline said...

I don't have a FB account; despite the numerous requests for "friend"ship from my immediate family. I browsed through using my mom's account -- with her permission of course-- and was not impressed. It didn't seem to be worth the cost of giving them access to my privacy.

I'm glad I didn't cave. Having to endure the daily barrage of idiotic political propaganda that certain family members love to "like" would've driven me nuts (my mother shows them to me on occasion.) I don't want to be reminded daily that people I love have become groupthink zombies.

Plus FB is evil. For ex.- At my mom's request I loaded up some family photos into her account, and set them to be viewable only to family. Well a month later they came out with a new photo rating app, that decided it would make all my mom's photos viewable to the whole world for rating.

Now there was nothing embarrassing to my family about those photos, but there could have been, so it pissed me off that they did that. And from what I've read they do that sort of thing a lot- change privacy settings and you have to go and change them back.

I read somewhere that the FB creator doesn't like the idea of anonymity. He thinks an open society is a polite society. Screw him. Does he also believe in sleeping with his door unlocked at night?

edutcher said...

Barry is falling back on all the old stuff from '08.

It's kind of like ex sex.

If you think about what he wants to do, it's exactly like ex sex.

Roger J. said...

Edutcher: lol--I can see axlerod saying "damn--it worked four years ago--whats going on now."

As a social networking luddite I dont do face book, dont have a TV and dont do twitter (whatever the hell that is). I have a cheap cell phone that I can text and talk on. I dont have a land line. I rather like being a luddite, especially as it comes to "social networking."

You dudes want to social network? My guess is that it comes with a cost--unless, of course, you dont value your privacy.

SteveR said...

I am neither a full on FB user nor am I paranoid about the privacy issues. I know FB will mine every bit of marketable data they can from everything about me on FB. I am generally apolitical and otherwise post things that are quirky or obscure. When you start "liking" things or set out to have 100s of friends, you will be noticed by the computers.

Nathan Alexander said...

@chickelit & Seeing Red,
Not only do I not have FB, nor tweet, I also don't post in Blogger comment sections.

Oh, wait...

ndspinelli said...

ChipS, Is Obama the 21st Century Nixon?

MayBee said...

I agree with Clint (and drozz).

If they can figure out who has voted and who hasn't voted, they can figure out who hasn't voted for the last several elections.

Then they can play the odds and go to the polls and vote on behalf those people (at least they can if no voter id is required).

Darrell said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chip S. said...

nd, that sounds about right.

Darrell said...

One of the first things the Obama Whitehouse got caught doing was stealing email addresses when you visited a .gov website. No, not placing cookies--stealing email addresses like the websites run by bad guys do. At least this time they are asking first.

Democrats in several States are sending letters to your neighbors telling them you voted Republican and then telling them how that impacted them negatively. The fascist in every Leftie is just straining to get out.

Chip S. said...

Did anything like this ever happen at a Nixon rally?

I can't believe that Obama blew the chance to be presidential here, and ask the cops to respect the guy's 1st Amendment rights.

Oh, wait. Yes, I can believe that.

I changed my mind, nd. I'm starting to think Obama's the new Peron.

Tibore said...

"Ann -- This is cool: You can see exactly how many people named Ann have already voted."

Most campaigns try to provide substantive reasons for you to vote for a candidate. Not superficial ones.

Sam L. said...

The Bandwagon appeal. Works on some. I feel sorry for them, but they are not, well, you know.

Clyde said...

Their privacy policy: You don't get any. Now give all of your info to Big Brother now! Or do you want your name passed along to Big Janet?

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

No one was alarmed by this:

Such information [being collected by Obama sites] may include personal information, such as your name, mailing address, email address, phone number, geographic location, and credit card information.

I don't mind, say, Amazon or Arkiv Music or other online retailers I do business with keeping my credit card info on file. Political campaigns are another matter, especially ones that have a well-documented history of playing fast and loose with cc security.

jr565 said...

Maybe the term Social media is badly named. Maybe it should be anti social media.

PatCA said...

Second term agenda:

"Ann, this is cool! You can look in your neighbor's windows and see what they're doing--you know, like watching Faux News! And that info goes straight to our website!"

Richard Bublitz said...

Voluntary hacking?