InsightaaS: Naked Security is a news/blog site hosted by security vendor Sophos. In this post, freelancer Lisa Vaas covers an unusual story: a Dutch student and artist named Shawn Buckles sold his “soul” (actually, a collection of personal data) in an online auction. While conceding that “Buckles’ sale is an interesting way to call attention to the fact that most of us have, in fact, sold at least part of our souls to online entities such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn or any of the other putatively “free” services that make their money out of crunching our numbers,” she notes that Buckles’ friends will be exposed when his email, online and social media conversations are conveyed to the winning bidder (The Next Web, for about $500), and wonders whether any of them will “get dragged into the circus unwillingly.”
There are those who so loathe to have their personal data milked for profit (or other, potentially more sinister purposes, such as identity theft or surveillance) that they up and divorce Google.
Many privacy-minded people likewise eschew Facebook.
Then, there’s Shawn Buckles: the kind of guy who puts his personal data up for auction to the highest bidder.
Buckles, a Dutch student and artist, had his data soul up for sale for a few weeks, during which time he received 53 bids, according to Wired.
On 12 April, the auction ended, with The Next Web (TNW) having placed the winning bid of €350 ($483, £287).
Specifically, he sold the following buckets of personal data..
Read the entire post: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2014/04/22/dutch-student-sells-online-soul-at-auction-for-e350/
