Start-up That Monitors Employees’ Internet and Social Media Footprints Gets Gov Approval

Source: Forbes

This week, the feds dropped their investigation of Social Intelligence Corporation, a year-old start-up that scours social media and Internet sites for dirt on employees and job applicants.

Writing about Social Intelligence after its launch, my colleague Nathan Vardi couldn’t decide whether the company was creepy or a sign of the times. The Federal Trade Commission’s decision to suspend its investigation of Social Intelligence indicates that the government, at the very least, sees the start-up as the latter, as long as it complies with the Fair Credit Reporting Act to ensure that its clients let job applicants know when something that turned up in a background check had an adverse effect on their getting employed, or rather not getting employed.

The company modified its language in the background check permission form that job applicants must sign to make it clearer exactly what they would be subjected to during Social Intelligence’s review. They also added a few examples to the form of what might be included in a search. The company sent me some of those examples of what’s previously turned up in applicant background checks: a job seeker who had an Internet photo featuring him holding multiple guns and a sword, another who was a member of a “racist” Facebook group (“I shouldn’t have to press 1 for English! Learn the language”), and a third whose Internet footprint indicated drug use, including membership in a pro-Cannabis 2012 campaign and Craigslist ads seeking OxyContin.

There are some lengths to which the company won’t go. Its COO, Geoffrey Andrews, told me that the company refused to work with a client in Colorado that wanted to do a background screen to see if job applicants were gay or not. It wouldn’t be illegal to help the company avoid tasting the rainbow, since there’s no law in Colorado prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, but Social Intelligence thought it unethical, says Andrews.

Read more: http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2011/06/15/start-up-that-monitors-employees-internet-and-social-media-footprints-gets-gov-approval/

CL ads are anonymous, how stupid do you have to be to put your name or phone number in an add seeking drugs? :shrug:

Furthermore, how can it be verified that the name/number put in a CL ad was actually put there by the person, and not someone seeking to cause them damage?

Some companies won't be happy until they can hire telepaths to monitor your every thought.

a society of people who modify their own behavior.

You get a double-whammy here: First, there is the actual data that is accrued by the watchers. Second, you get the underlying, more subtle knowledge, that you are being observed, recorded and probed, even if you are not. That way, you don't have to research and poke into the lives of everyone; just enough snooping to create a more paranoid Gestalt is effective.

Perception has always beat the actual in the process of manufacturing compliance and consent. Those who are not deemed worthy, (be it by credit score, history, morals, beliefs, or actions) are left to simply fall out of the system entirely as our new, and accepted, Underclass has.

We may very well be in the process of seeing the extinction of rights, as we knew them. That is, if we are, collectively, going to allow this transformation to continue unabated. It is kind of like, first they made you pee in in cup, then they groped your genitals, then they ... and so on. If we do not pick a place where we will no longer comply, under any circumstances, you can be assured that the list will go on and on until we, and future generations, are nothing more than numerical stats functioning as expendable commodities in a collective corporation once known as Humanity. It is quite possible, from there, that every contrasting idea we have had about ourselves, (and as a species) will fade away, or become curious and quaint notions of the past.

...several years ago, there was an article in the WSJ about monitoring employees use of computers and the net...it mentioned that my employer, a worldwide company HQd in Atlanta (and "hubbed" out of ATL), had purchased THE highest level of the program...the program could even grab logins and passwords, recording your every key stroke.

I suppose what really amazes me about people at work is that, are they really stupid enough to sit surfing or shopping or watching porn, while at work or on a company issued machine?

Now back to the article...Big Brother is peaking in your "Windows"!

Facism at it's best.

“I shouldn’t have to press 1 for English! Learn the language” would play right into the hands of FR, you'd think.

If this goes so terribly against all that makes us America, then why do the powers that be allow it to continue?

when pee testing started coming on big time, and now invasion of personal time takes a big step forward. The corporations that run this country are not happy just controlling our work lives- they want to control our lives completely. How long before we have TV's that receive and broadcast?

on edit: I have an iMac- has a built in camera and mic. How hard would it be for the government to get a spy routine into your computer? Not very hard. It would be child's play to have that mic and cam activated and indicating nothing to the user.

my macbook has a built in camera too :tinfoilhat:

What my employees do in their off time as long as they don't do it while telling everyone they work for me.

Just sayin'

that you wouldn't put on a billboard over your house, unless you're really, really good at doing it anonymously.