Comments on: Time.com Slams Spock; Launches Next Wednesday

By: David Mackey

David Mackey — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 23:56:55 +0000

Ouch. You just got slammed.

By: joe

joe — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 09:43:23 +0000

500 Internal error when you try to sign up. Meh.

By: Anita Hamilton

Anita Hamilton — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 21:10:58 +0000

Dear TechCrunch,

Before you falsely accuse me of doing “drive by”, you might want to get your own facts straight. I got a personal demo of Spock last week from co-founder Jay Bhatti and have been using it ever since. I’m quite familiar with how Spock works and devoted an entire paragraph of the story to describing it.

Your erroneous post is a cheap shot — particularly for a site that I have always enjoyed.

Anita Hamilton
Staff Writer
TIME Magazine

By: Anon

Anon — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:53:44 +0000

Perhaps many of you don’t realize it but there is a lot of information about you that is in the public domain. For instance all records about births, property transactions, arrests, marriage, bankruptcy, etc is available for public consumption. That information is slowly being made available online.
So someone could build a search engine which builds a profile about you without your permission and posts that publically. To me that is creepy. Just because info about me is in the public domain, it doesn’t mean I approve of that. Unless laws change there is really nothing that can be done to prevent this. The only thing slowing this down is the info is at the City/Town Clerks office and government is slow to modernize their data infrastructure.

By: dave

dave — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:52:56 +0000

i also reviewed spock.com for my upcoming column in “Competitive Intelligence Magazine” (from SCIP.org) - along with dozens of other similar resources - and i DO understand how it works, and i DO think that it sucks…sorry, but those of you who know what i do for a living may enjoy my research expert opinion…the column will be public later this fall so hopefully will make the rounds…

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 08:34:13 +0000

“What makes these sites controversial is that they gather all this information without your permission.”

Without your permission? The information that is gathered is done so from publicly available web sites. If you don’t want Spock (or anyone else for that matter) to list that information, don’t put it on the web. This is a joke!

By: magnusdopus

magnusdopus — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 07:48:54 +0000

I think this limits what Spock can be. If it ever became dominant, then there would be a massive privacy outcry and its functionality would have to be curbed. While there are other ‘people search’ sites that offer equal or more information, none of them are mainstream or claim to be Web 2.0.

Also, how did they get around the trademark infringement issue? Is Paramount an investor? Seems risky to name your site after someone else’s commercial trademark.

By: Johnson

Johnson — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 07:19:20 +0000

All you info belong to us!

By: David Spark

David Spark — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 07:09:40 +0000

One thing the journalist doesn’t mention is all the information is already publicly out there. Either the person put it there on their public profile or someone reported on you publicly. Everything else is opinions and people can create opinions of you without Spock or any of the people search engines.

By: BeingParents

BeingParents — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 06:29:06 +0000

It sound to me like Spock are not he the snoopers. In any businesses the completion will have some thing not not nice to say. BE NICE!

By: Vinod

Vinod — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 06:14:15 +0000

If you ever need some spock invites, come to me. I have a few. Btw, Spock does not unethically snoop using some illegal means.. It tries to meaningfully aggregate what otherwise would have been spread all over the Social Web.

By: David Stern

David Stern — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 05:36:12 +0000

Thanks for the support, Mike. I’m totally biased of course, but I guess the author is probably right. I’m sure we in Silicon Valley would all agree that culling through 22 pages of Google or other popular search engine results to find out the essence of a person is MUCH less creepy than having Spock find the essence for you. And what is up with those cookie things? CREEPY! : )

By: James

James — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 05:11:16 +0000

I have alpha stage search engine….

My search engine and company fires employees for security brench, grammar police, crooks, greedy people. Of course, I can make lots of money.

Money sucks anyways. It’s full of paper, odor, germs, and waste of time.

By: AGronowski

AGronowski — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:59:00 +0000

“Our robot skimmed it off some webpage it surfed” isn’t much of a defense for libel.

By: Michael Vu

Michael Vu — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:51:13 +0000

Hilarious. I agree with Tien,

“Old media commenting on web 2.0 is a terrible combo. “

By: Aaronontheweb (AjaxNinja)

Aaronontheweb (AjaxNinja) — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:29:24 +0000

If Spock spiders public sources of information like Wikipedia and LinkedIn, where users voluntarily hand over their information, then obviously making that information accessible at yet another locale is FINE. It’s not like Spock is paying off hospitals to surrender medical information for the sake of making it public.

The idiots at the drive-by media (nice use of the term, Mike) shouldn’t be commenting on a service that they dubiously suspect might be capable of harming users by making certain pieces of information public when the entire purpose of the drive-by media is MAKING PIECES OF INFORMATION ABOUT INDIVIDUALS OR ORGANIZATION PUBLIC.

By: god

god — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:28:58 +0000

Are you sure she’s “slamming” spock…?

“…all without using Google or any other popular search site.” has a little ring to it.

By: Deals and Coupons

Deals and Coupons — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:27:19 +0000

This is like blaming guns for killing people.

By: Textbook Case

Textbook Case — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:13:40 +0000

Yeah I mean if they want creepy, try Zabasearch, or Jigsaw like in the link. Come on.

By: tien nguyen

tien nguyen — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 02:51:40 +0000

Old media commenting on web 2.0 is a terrible combo. These were the same people that named “us” as the person of the year, lame.