The Creepy Side of Social Media

Blockshopper is big in SF.  My guess is it's in most major cities; ours is SF.Blockshopper. 

It is sort of creepy to have bios written about you-I've had one written about me when I sold my own house and I was a little creeped out on some level.  The business part was fine, but the personal part wasn't.  I guess privacy really has gone away.

There must be a way to manage some of the information that we share inadvertantly.

It appears that Blockshopper is currently available in 17 metropolitan areas around the country.  And if Seattle is any example, it is limited to the county the city is in.   They have lots of links, and data - much of which is either incomplete or not usefull as presented (for example, listing median tax property tax payments for various zip codes does not really help, without the median property value.  Why didn't they just list the tax rate?

Along with the creepy function and the costs involved, does not look like it would be helpful for those already here on ActiveRain.

One you get over the fact that our phones with GPS know where we are to within about 15 feet, how much creepier can anything get? We are all under a magnifying glass these days. Get used to it - or go off the grid, I guess.

Sharon:Congrats on the featured article. I also have not heard of Blockshopper but HAVE seen different websites that show all information regarding personal information, out there for the world to see. I do know most legit companies put disclaimers on their client info forms stating how they don't share it with others. Obviously that disclaimer means little. That is the scary part.  I can only imagine it getting worse with the file sharing that Obama plans on implementing for insurance/medical sharing.

Hi Sharon,  This is news to me also.  Maybe you could bring us a better understanding about this creepy endeavor ?

Interesting post. More generally, it's surpising (amazing? frightening?) to discover how much information is online about people.

One time, a friend of mine posted a comment on another real estate web site. And he got a really nasty, biased, uncalled-for response. The only clue was the poster's Hotmail e-mail address. His intent wasn't to stalk her or track her down, but simply to figure out what would prompt someone to reply so inappropriately.

Well, with Google and that one e-mail address, he was able to figure out who she was, her age, where she'd gone to high school and college, what she'd majored in, when she'd moved from the West Coast to the East Coast, her current address, her current employer, and much more. He even was able to discover the name of her college roommate. And she hadn't been particularly careless online. But she'd posted a few things here and there.

You want frightening? Consider Facebook. I'm no expert at it--I have a Facebook account and that's about it--but I've heard people describe what's possible.

It's an ever-changing world out there.

This is terrible.  I hope we don't see them in our area any time soon.

The real estate industry doesn't need more bottom-feeding technology companies like this.  And, this is a reminder to always be careful and wary of new social media "must haves" that are expensive time wasters.  We know in our guts what works for our business.

Yes, we have BlockShopper in Cleveland and - yes - what they do is creepy. They are pretty aggressive. The worst part is that they do not disclose the source of information which they publish. They obviously use the software which re-word the previously published data and make it look like a personal interview.

It was not fun when one of my clients called me and complained about info published by BlockShoppers. As a consequence of that publication - his wife's co-workers were kind of jelous of how expensive was the house they've just bought, and that created some turbulence at work. He even asked me if I was the source of this info because my name was also mentioned in that article. That was ugly! When I called BlockShoppers to figure out what's going on, the company's associate congratulated me (!) with such a success because they "publish info only about local celebrities or outstanding professionals". 

However, another client of mine figured out that this company got sued but won because legally it was nothing wrong in re-publishing personal info... This is creepy.

I am not feeling creepy, more tacky and lacking professionalism. DC Blockshopper - if that is the same group calls quite a bit looking for advertisers. Their plan may work for a bit but it's not what I call a great long term business plan!!!

Hi Sharon,

Thanks for the heads up, not that we have famous people in Canada, oh wait Micheal J Fox, Pamela Anderson, David Foster, , but they all moved years ago, so I think we are safe for a bit,

Thanks in any event, we don't need this Block shopper thing for sure.

Happy selling

Interesting what JP said about the TMZ of real estate. I see them in Google alerts for my area & it always has an 'Enquirer' type of feel to it.  I'm not sure WHY a dental hygienist in my area would actually call this good publicity or advertisement for the sale of her home? Sounds like the start of a stalking problem. Just because your home gets put on the market, why would they investigate everything about you? You house is for sale, not your life with a bio! It's beyond creepy.

This is brand new territory for me. I'm sure it would be kinda cool to read, ala Talk Soup or TMZ (not that I watch this stuff, I just heard that's what they do), but I'd really not like to be included in the gossip stuff. I wonder if they'll add real estate agents and mortgage professionals info in there someday? Creepy is right.

We have a little of the 'who bought the most expensive houses last month?' news here.  But it is usually very famous people (Al Gore), and things that they do that are public knowledge.

No wonder the famous buy in a trust with an attorney closing for them.

Sarah

There seems to be no privacy left and it appears to be getting worse.

Ugh! Really? Some people love the "15 minutes" but there are those that wish to keep their personal life...personal. Is that odd? I long for the days of not knowing every gory detail of someone's mishaps, feuds or life story. So now there is a growing bud of real estate paparazzi? Gross.