ManyMe: Online Identity

Stepan Boltalin and Shusuke Murai

1. http://www.redbubble.com/people/bobbymcleod/art/542670-multiple-personality-disorder

⇒How many of them have several online identities?

(ManyMe)

...of the 170 million U.S. email users, more than 94% (~160 million) have at least two email accounts and 65% of users (~128 million) utilize three or more accounts.

(eMarketer)1.

1. http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/short-replies/

Did you know?

Project: “ManyMe”

About “ManyMe”:Exposes accessibility of user information using the simplest search tools.

1.

1. http://www.artistsvalley.com/previewicons-Database-Application-Icons/User_Identity_Tag_Search-icon.html

Privacy in the cyberspace...

People are more vulnerable than they think...

“Digital Dossier”(Solove, 2004)

”A Collection of public records”=>SSN/Name/Address/criminal records...

=causes “information flow”: leaking identity...

=>Governmental use / Surveillance of public

=>For commercial purpose / surveillance of individuals / violence

Privacy vs Transparency(+accessibility)

Solove(2004): Four general function of Transparency1)To shed light on governmental activities and proceedings

2)To find out information about public officials and candidates for public office

3)To facilitate certain social transactions(selling properties/initiating lawsuits)

4)To find out information about other individuals for variety of purposes

⇒Bring “fairness” to public.

In reality...

Aggregated information are exploited for commercial interest... =>”Contributing the growing power of business”(148)

⇔”leads to unease, vulnerability, and powerlessness[of people]”(148)

“People have no idea what information the dossiers contain or how the dossiers are being used”(149)

∴ We need a tool to make people aware of “dossiers”...

Competitive Landscape

Rapleaf | Spokeo

Competitive Landscape

“...the San Francisco-based company obtained Facebook IDs from many of the social network's apps and sold those IDs to advertisers”(Wall Street Journal, Fowler and Steel, 18 Oct. 2010).

On October 28, 2010, Facebook banned Rapleaf from scraping data on Facebook, and Rapleaf said it would delete the Facebook IDs it had collected...

Competitive Landscape

ManyMe (current state)

• Crawler

• Input name of person

• Input site to search

1. http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/07/05/server_slowdown_problems_possible_causes.htm

1.

Screenshot

Goals and Supposed Users

Goal of “ManyMe”To raise awareness of people toward “digital dossiers”...

=>Consequences of “digital transparency” in regard to personal information

=>Trade-off between Accessibility/Privacy

Supposed Users of “ManyMe”

128 million US users with 3+ email accounts.=> casual users who are just trying to be less transparent about their presence in the internet.

The first service offered to general public.

It won’t aggregate/sell any information of users

⇒Bring “transparency” back to citizens

Values in ManyMe

Privacy vs Transparency => Conflict in Value / Trade-off (Bowker and Star)

Reconciling the tension...(Solove, 2004):=>“to redact personal information where possible and to regulate specific use of information”(152)

= ”ManyMe”: motivates users to “redact” personal information.

Autonomy=> Users possess the control of their own identities.

Freedom, Identity Security, Trust...

Stakeholders of ManyMe

Direct/indirect stakeholders in “ManyMe”

128 million US users with 3+ email accounts.

Companies that promote single online identity for each user.

Conflict: Privacy vs Transparency- How to overcome?

Issues in “ManyMe”Third person may use this tool to detect identities of others...

=>Possible malfunction of “Transparency”...

- Solution: Noise

- Added noise to protect their identity=>Only possessors can detect which email accounts are theirs.

=> It is difficult to find a particular tree when it is in a vast forest.

Future development

• Database integration

• Search of the names associated with emails found

• Search based on Skype ID, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ