| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
|---|---|
| #1AvonRekaesAug 30, 2009 23:20:44 | I DO NOT WANT my screen name showing up when you do a people search for my city of residence or ZIP CODE (WHICH IS REQUIRED TO HAVE AN ACCOUNT) There should be an option to allow yourself to be searchable as such, if you are looking for a gaming group for instance, but it should NOT BE DEFAULT. |
| #2The_JesterAug 30, 2009 23:46:25 | A very valid problem. One solution would be to "lie" about your ZIP/postal code. I tend to default to "90210" (being a Canadian who knows very few other zips). |
| #3AvonRekaesAug 30, 2009 23:49:55 | Good idea. Thanks a lot. |
| #4DuskweaverAug 31, 2009 1:57:41 | Yeah, you can put anything you like in that field, which makes having it mandatory a bit pointless. There really should be a privacy option, though. As things stand, WotC may quite possibly be breaking data protection laws in my country... |
| #5The_JesterAug 31, 2009 10:30:37 | Yeah, you can put anything you like in that field, which makes having it mandatory a bit pointless. There really should be a privacy option, though. As things stand, WotC may quite possibly be breaking data protection laws in my country... Facebook just had to strike a deal with the Canadian government over their lack of data protection, and there you have the option to hide your details from non-friends. This website definetly violates the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act (FOIP). |
| #6Heros_BackpackAug 31, 2009 10:35:44 | Is putting 'myob' as your code lying? Because it accepted that. |
| #7DragoncatAug 31, 2009 11:45:21 | There's a reason I claim to live in the United States Minor Outlying Islands. :D |
| #8The_JesterAug 31, 2009 16:02:54 | Is putting 'myob' as your code lying? Because it accepted that. You might want to check the Terms of Service: ww2.wizards.com/Company/Default.aspx?doc... You need to check a box saying you have read them after entering your information before you save. There *might* be a statement saying information you added must be true, which would make false statements fraud. But I doubt there'll be such a clause. Alternatively, you can go to the Privacy Settings in your profile (Profile> profile sidebar> privacy settings) and remove yourself from searches or only let friends see your information. |
| #9lokiareAug 31, 2009 16:05:41 | They need to customize it so that you can pick and choose what people see, instead of this all or nothing Nazi crap. |
| #10drnickAug 31, 2009 16:16:39 | Nazi crap. I loled. To be more serious, this does need to be fixed. I don't recall it requiring city though just zip code. Does it extrapolate that out or what? |
| #11MockAug 31, 2009 16:21:59 | Am I mistaken that you can block yourself via privacy settings? I've set my profile to total-privacy-don't-bother-me, and I haven't been able to find myself in a search. I think you can just say "Hide me from searches" though if you don't want to shut the whole profile down. |
| #12jager0727Aug 31, 2009 23:49:22 | Nazi crap. yeah but zip'll tell you city and all that takes is a quick google search |
| #13Heros_BackpackSep 01, 2009 4:24:22 | Is putting 'myob' as your code lying? Because it accepted that. If it does, I can't find it. And I already had changed the privacy settings. I don't even have a zip-code, since I live outside the US, so I'll never be able to put a true one in that box... (and besides, it reverted to '0' immediately afterwards, which is also a lie) |
| #14drnickSep 01, 2009 14:08:44 | yeah but zip'll tell you city and all that takes is a quick google search True. There definitely should be an opt out feature for that stuff. I have to keep reminding myself that just because it doesn't bother me, doesn't make it right ;) |
| #15WotC_StokelySep 01, 2009 14:39:11 | Privacy Settings under your left hand Profile menu allow you to exclude yourself from search. City is not a required field. Postal Code is (it will accept non-US postal codes). The reason many people like postal code is that it allows other gamers to search for people in their area to make friends and play with. If you are not comfortable with that, please exclude yourself from search. In addition, you can also set your profile to private. |
| #16whitebaronSep 01, 2009 14:55:30 |
please reply to this as well: community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758... there is currently no way to remove yourself from being logged in at onesite.com, which is a real downturn for me... |
| #17AvonRekaesSep 03, 2009 10:21:59 |
What if I would like to remain searchable by my interests? Like Eberron, being a DnD Insider "Dragonslayer" or whatever, but not necessarily by my real-life location? It's either "Make friends, or don't make friends". I'd like an option to be part of an online community without automatically putting my real-life location out there. |
| #18lokiareSep 03, 2009 17:32:53 |
Each zip code is huge. There is usually a zipcode for each county or whatever gigantic area. |
| #19AvonRekaesSep 04, 2009 16:09:58 | And? A breach of privacy is a breach of privacy. What if you live in a rural town with only one or two game stores and happened to post a picture of yourself as your avatar? Just because you put a picture of yourself up on an internet forum doesn't mean you want people walking up to you in a store and suddenly start talking to you as if they know you. It can be awkward at the very least and intensely creepy at the worst. |
| #20calronmoonflowerSep 04, 2009 18:43:31 | If you post your pic you shouldn't whine about people recognizing you. |
| #21DuskweaverSep 05, 2009 3:11:35 | Each zip code is huge. There is usually a zipcode for each county or whatever gigantic area. This might be true of US zipcodes, but my postcode (my country's equivalent to your zipcodes) potentially tells you which street I live in. Personally, that doesn't really bother me (otherwise I'd just enter a false code in that field), but I can see how others might object. I can certainly understand people wanting to be able to share their hobbies and musical tastes, etc., while keeping private anything that might identify where they live in the real world. Expecting any privacy at all when you use a photo of yourself as your avatar is assinine, though. |
| #22sockmonkey66Sep 06, 2009 15:30:07 | How many people just entered a fake zip code? I bet it's nearly everyone which makes the asking for it pointless. It's probably just another case of ad execs trying to mine information on how popular D&D is in different areas so they know where to target ads and stuff. Frankly if they want accurate information on me they can dard well pay me for it or get stuffed. |
| #23lokiareSep 06, 2009 17:22:21 | I wish they'd make it optional, that way we could choose to do it, then use some kind of google map thing to show local games and players in your area. |
| #24kilpatdsSep 06, 2009 22:18:26 | Each zip code is huge. There is usually a zipcode for each county or whatever gigantic area. It's not necessarily true of US zipcodes either. My zipcode only covers a couple of square miles. |
| #25crazysamaritanSep 06, 2009 23:57:53 | Each zip code is huge. There is usually a zipcode for each county or whatever gigantic area. It's usually based on population density. Other factors, such as proximity of other post offices, and amount of postal traffic, and sometimes natural terrain and political boundries will also affect the size of zip codes. |
| #26drnickSep 07, 2009 15:56:59 | ^ This. A zip code is general enough to not be a concern. At least where I live each zip code probably covers about five or ten miles. But that five or ten miles has about ten thousand residents. |
| #27quenditarSep 08, 2009 11:58:26 | Where I live, one zip code covers about a fifth of the city. But the universe doesn't need to know what city I live in. I agree that WotC is probably breaking non-US data protection laws, unless they've done something really clever. |
| #28lokiareSep 08, 2009 14:04:07 |
Yeah, its called licensing out to a third party. WotC isn't doing anything, its OneSite.com that is doing all the lawbreaking. |
| #29kilpatdsSep 08, 2009 15:59:11 |
It was found that 87% (216 million of 248 million) of the population in the United States had reported characteristics that likely made them unique based only on {5-digit ZIP, gender, date of birth} To restate that, Your Zipcode (5 digit), your Gender, and your Birthday probably uniquely identify you. And your profile contains all 3 pieces of information. |
| #30lokiareSep 08, 2009 18:10:58 |
Nice! |
| #31drnickSep 09, 2009 15:36:39 | Cool. I was unaware. Can you identify me? I'm curious. Edit - Oh DOB. That makes sense. Does the profile show DOB? I'll check. Edit 2 - Okay I'm dumb. I can't find any of this information on either the people tab above or on my own or another person's profile. Did they recently take this stuff off or am I missing something? I freely admit that I don't know this software very well and I could very well be missing where this stuff is displayed. |
| #32lokiareSep 10, 2009 12:25:31 |
I looked and can't find it, but that doesn't mean a good hacker or identity theft could get it from them. |
| #33drnickSep 10, 2009 16:04:24 | k |
| #34kratchSep 10, 2009 18:16:00 |
You don't need to be a hacker, you just need google and for your target to not have a clue about personal privacy despite their cries for it... for example, I didn't even need your Zip code, just typing the same name you use here into google and comparing the same picture of you and your cat on both this site and another community website (to confirm it's you), I was able to find your age, your city of residance, your city of birth, your height, your sign (giving me an idea of the month of birth), the collage your attending and your former place of employment. |
| #35lokiareSep 10, 2009 21:37:18 |
Nice. Did you find anything interesting? See the problem with me is that my credit is so horribly bad that if an identity theft stole my identity and bought stuff, they would only increase my credit rating. |
| #36ogrehooperSep 10, 2009 23:33:27 | That feature is so that gamers may locate others in their nearby area. Knowing where you live isn't going to assist in real Identity theft (I work in collections and work around ID fraud alot). Plus, it alleviates the "I'm anonymous so I can be a real rude e-bully" persona so many idiots get because they think the net is some other world with no consequences. Be truthful, play nice, and stop complaining about things you ALREADY AGREED TO WHEN YOU SIGNED UP. |
| #37lokiareSep 11, 2009 3:06:00 |
I've known several companies in the past that used my address as verification of identity. I'm sure there are still companies that do this. From there they can get more information. From the additional information they can get your identity. |
| #38crazysamaritanSep 12, 2009 0:49:13 | ^ This. A zip code is general enough to not be a concern. At least where I live each zip code probably covers about five or ten miles. But that five or ten miles has about ten thousand residents. I never said it was general enough. I was pointing out that it's based mostly on population size, which means the less-densly populated areas are more at-risk than city-dwellers.
But mostly I find it a privacy violation if you checked "don't show me in searches" and searches still show your profile. |
| #39drnickSep 12, 2009 11:48:12 | Is that what happens? That does sound like a concern. |
| #40lokiareSep 12, 2009 13:39:03 |
Yes a bug that breaks the law. |
| #41calronmoonflowerSep 12, 2009 20:13:26 | I checked and the exclusion from searches works for city and zip code. |
| #42WebsterSep 13, 2009 21:26:59 | If anyone has legal concerns, they should contact Customer Service who can direct the concerns to the legal department. Accusations of "breaking the law" on the boards isn't a good idea as it may backfire. One way the issue can be "resolved" is not allow people outside the U.S. to use the boards. Be very careful what you wish for.
|
| #43kratchSep 14, 2009 4:50:30 | I know I wouldn't like that. |
| #44lokiareSep 14, 2009 16:07:46 |
... Or they could just fix the problem and allow people to block out portions of their profiles, and not enter the information. |
| #45alumanSep 15, 2009 2:07:00 |
No, no its not.
Each zipcode is for a post office, which in more rural areas maybe roughly a county area, but isn't always. Here in relatively rural New Mexico, there are 3 zip codes to cover a population base of about 12K people. When I lived in VA Beach there was roughly a dozen codes for just Norfolk/VA Beach, let alone the other cities. |
| #46EscherEnigmaSep 19, 2009 11:46:21 | Each zipcode is for a post office, which in more rural areas maybe roughly a county area, but isn't always. Here in relatively rural New Mexico, there are 3 zip codes to cover a population base of about 12K people. When I lived in VA Beach there was roughly a dozen codes for just Norfolk/VA Beach, let alone the other cities. For example, Socorro, NM has 1 zip code and about 18k people. Albuquerque, NM has 46 zip codes and about 522k people, or about 11k people per zipcode. For comparison New York City has (I think) 162 zip codes and about 8,363k people, or about 51k people per zipcode. So it definitely varies, but even going from rural New Mexico to one of the more densely populated cities in America it only chagnes the pop-to-zip code ration by a factor of 5 which. Now, thinking about the math for a second... If there are 18k people in Socorro, NM, and we assume a uniform distribution of births (a bad assumption, but it makes the math easier for the moment) then we could expect about 50 people or so per birthday. Of those, let's say 25 would be the right gender (another bad assumption, gender ratios aren't perfect and in some places may be significantly skewed.) Now we have 25 people or so that were born on the right day, live in the right zip code, and have the right gender. Now there's probably a good chance that at least 2 of those people were born in the same year, but population demographics suggests that getting more then two people, in such a smal group, that have the same birth day and birth year is unlikely. Moving up to a larger area, we get five times as many people... so that 25 people of the right gender, birth day, and zip code become 125. Chopping it down by year, you'll probably get 1-5 people of the right year. At that point it's not hard to manually filter through the prospects and come up with a likely contestent. So yeah. I can see how zip code, gender and birth date allows someone to uniquely identify you in most cases, even in densely populated areas. The main trouble isn't getting access to the information (a disgusting amount of stuff is publicly availible) but collecting it to it's easily searchable. Neat. |