Goldman Sachs Has Your Personal Information.

Let me start off by saying that I have a lot of respect for the research that goes on in Goldman Sachs, their seeming immortality in the face of recession and prosecution, and their knack for making money out of nothing. Bravo, GS.

The recent news that GS is going to invest heavily in Facebook though should make everyone feel a lot less comfortable with their social networks. I recall years ago discussing with some economics and psychology students the treasure trove of data that Facebook holds. It would be, as one of my former economics professors called it, "some really sexy data." Having a large amount of data on a significant proportion of high income consumers (if you have the internet and live in the US, I am considering you a "high income consumer") for their social contacts/links and web activity would be worth b-b-b-b-billions to any good market research firm with an army of researchers. Which GS has.

So GS is going to float Facebook for a while, so they don't have to reveal some of their internal shenanigans, and do you honestly think access to your data in some way or other is not part of the deal? I only regret not getting off Facebook sooner; they keep your data for a few months to ensure you "really meant to quit." And do you think Zuckerberg is really going to deny them your data when he let's Farmville take it?

So again, bravo to Goldman Sachs and Facebook for their astounding feat. Facebook created a way to convince people to give up mountains of valuable data in return for no monetary value (I will agree there is a value to 'connection'), and has made billions by selling it to firm, who will in turn get at least billions in research data.

Again, if you feel that access to a social network is worth the web activity data that you give up, then by all means sign up for Facebook and just understand that GS and Zuckerberg and making a lot of money off of it. Personally, I'm not getting back on Facebook until:

a) I get a check from Facebook for signing up and posting my data online for their availability, along with access to their network. I haven't decided on exact prices for each service. My individual data is cheap, so off the top of my head I'm thinking $100 per year.

b) I have a small business which would get serious value from the available advertising and connections in the social network.

c) since Facebook is now into tracking the sites its users visit, I think they should pay by the hour for any sites I browse while using their services.

For those of you who think I'm paranoid or being stupid regarding all the great things they get from Facebook (and I don't deny its a good service), just remember that its not a fun little network of people connecting. It is a corporation, providing a service for a price. The price is the data you put up, which they re-invest to make more profit. I just think my personal information is more valuable then the ability to be stalked.