The family tree app looks easy to use and obviously connects into some deep resources. The beta label does make me a bit nervous still.

It wasn’t really clear to me out of the gate what they would really do with my info and after the second screen how much more they were going to ask me for. Did their step by step process just keep going? So I stopped there.

If I was desperate that I wanted to find my roots, I might be more motivated to follow the flow.

And you should always mention the free service from the LDS church called FamilySearch.org I bet you’d be surprised if you compared the worldwide digitization project they have going on compared to Google’s book one.

Every user has the option of holding their information private to themselves or to their friends & family. Most users have chosen to share these with other visitors.

We do review and delete anything that could be personally identifying but no oversight process is flawless.

I believe Robert’s point is that all search engines expose every one of us to the risk you describe. It is similar to terrorism. You do everything you can but the World Trade Center still fell. Does that mean you abandon all hope and try to live in a bunker?

“And I hate to tell you but right now for $25 I can go buy your SS# & credit history in >10 minutes.”

1. And if it happens to him, you’re also a prime suspect for issuing a threat in public. Thank you for making my point about naiveté.
2. You’re paying too much. East European, Russian, Chinese and Indian hackers can get your entire life for that price.
3. The same creative - albeit nefarious - folks can and will slice & dice a web site in seconds to data mine the info for resale.

I’ve been accused of being an old cynic. Maybe… but I’ve been around long enough to recognize the song of lambs to the slaughter. If you forget everything else, remember items 2 & 3.

As any attorney will tell you, that you intended to do no harm is irrelevant. The Internet is a tool. Like all tools, it has uses that are extraordinary while others are foolish. Parking personal information on a web site is not wise.

I understand and respect your desire to enable people to leave a legacy but unless you can quote the law (federal or state) that protects data voluntarily disclosed, then agree to the Million Dollar Per Person guarantee. If you can’t back up your Kumbaya claims with cash (and you can’t because no insurance company will write such a ludicrous policy) then admit what you’re encouraging is worse then telling people to unlock their doors. You are removing all the walls and advertising no one’s home.

Will you issue a sincere apology when all the data you naively solicited is ravaged or do you actually believe you are smarter and more secure than the NSA and the Pentagon?

My anger is you’re apparently not even aware you’re creating ideal conditions for identity theft. Consider this: how will you feel if you devastate even one individual when your supposed security system fails?

I read the words and catch the drift that you’ll then walk away to “something more successful”; as you so glibly put it. Unbelievable!

I like the story of my life site. Sharp design and easy to use. Maybe venture funding is a good idea after all. Some friends and I created something similar but aimed particularly at Boomers and our parents.

The My Heritage family tree app is also very easy to use. We still need this on our site. Maybe we can work something out to connect the two.

GreatLifeStories.com was started as a means to celebrate the lives and accomplishments of our parents and grandparents. Some users might slip into this self focused “Watch me water the garden” hubris but what I have seen is real people that would like to leave something of worth for future generations.

They all have photo albums and they are afraid they will stay in the box and no one will remember.

Each of our founders had close relatives have near death experiences or pass away in a very tight 2-3 month window of time. We realized that TIME was short and that our parents and grandparents were transitioning into the last phase of their lives. All of us were so busy with the here and now that we missed the urgency.

If our site fades and we have to move the information into something more successful, we will, but it is my intent that we will support these stories securely for time to come. We all have real jobs and supporting this site just doesn’t cost that much money.

Baby Boomers are some of the savviest consumers on the planet. They are extremely astute at mentally filtering ads or outright blocking them entirely from their browser. Ooops, that ’selling eyeballs to advertisers’ idea won’t work.

So what else generates revenue? Perhaps the goal is subscriptions to upload personal information to a website? Really? 90% of Americans don’t trust websites… and for good reason. Quote the law (federal or state) that protects data voluntarily disclosed? And any promise that the information is secure is ignorance. Web site security is a scam sold by the unscrupulous to simpletons. The list of web sites that failed to secure data adequately includes every major bank, military, government and business organization in the world. To believe that’s going to change for these latest ‘family history’ flavored start ups is beyond absurd.

The tout is ‘ease of collaboration’. We should all join hands and sing Kumbaya I guess too. Upload pictures of your kids and house and then tell the friendly police officer who thinks you are an idiot that you had no idea there were bad people on the Internet who would break into your home while you were at a family reunion; or masturbate to the photo of your grandchild till they can snatch her for real.

Am I a cynic? No, I’m a Baby Boomer. Most of us are experienced enough to see through the obvious BS. Any human being with the audacity to assure another human being that they should be trusted, is either a liar or a fool. Trust is earned. Talk to me when you have been around ten years. Most won’t make it ten months.

PS: I really loved that line about selling participant’s information back to them before you go out of business. How about people use their head and not upload it in the first place? That way they don’t have to pay to get it back after ‘bots have data mined it and sold off anything of value. You want to prove you are for real? Put up a GUARANTEE that if ANY information EVER gets lost, stolen or sold from the site, EVERY participant will receive a check for ONE MILLION DOLLARS. In my day that was known two ways: “Put up or Shut Up”… or the more vernacular: “Put Your Money Where Your mouth Is!”

Is trying to build a social site around surnames, with a database of 50,000 surname origin reports we have an ideal starting point. The idea is that for people researching their surname and it’s history, a group of pages based around their surname makes for a great base of operations and will often lead to the exchange of information with others researching the name.

The site still needs a lot of work, especially in the social networking areas… but with zero development budget work has been frustratingly slow.

There is a Foundation involved in storing the data so it’s not just some start-up saying they’ll store data. If you have ever had any dealings with those they are not just something you slap together and then leave with no consequences. The IRS is all over that.

Surely the biggest joke is: ‘Story of my life, keep your story forever BETA‘

The site is great! I love it. It’s easy to use and navigate through.

This site has a lot of potential.

@Whoopie - you need to eat your hat my friend…

Why? I don’t know.

http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com