While it came as no surprise when I read the article claiming that Buzzfeed recorded the information from their online surveys (because who isn't data-mining these days), I was still little jarred. I mean this is Buzzfeed, their quirky and funny videos are what get me through the day, so they can't be hoarding all of this information about individual users like a kid trying to collect Pokemon. Right? Right?? Well it turns out they can and do, and while I do firmly believe that Buzzfeed doesn't have any ill intentions regarding all of this data, we should still recognize that this is a problem. What would happen if someone were to, after reading this article, hack into Buzzfeed and steal all of the information they've obtained from all of its survey members, or if a disgruntled employee were to take all of this information and decided to sell it. That could have major implications to all of those people, especially since they record "lots of information" about the people who fill out those surveys.
I would maybe understand if Buzzfeed were doing something with this information, but it seems like now they're just sitting on this huge pile of data and will continue to do so until something goes wrong. And while it may seem like mundane information, some of the information they have could lead to person's real identity, where they live, where they work, etc. I do hope Buzzfeed has the sense to delete some or all of this information before it's too late. I can live without knowing which Sex and City character I am in exchange for keeping necessary personal information off of Buzzfeeds servers. But full disclosure, I took the survey before I read this article and I'm a total Carrie.
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