A group of 1,700 people willingly parted with their personal data earlier this month in support of The Data Drive, a sci-fi Facebook feed depicting a social network in ruins following conceptual art terrorist Mark Zuckerberg making off with everyone's data. Now, Useless Press, a.k.a. Adrian Chen, Sam Lavigne, and Alix Rule—the art group that worked with jokester/witty collage artist Daniel Kolitz to create The Data Drive—is selling this willingly-submitted data on eBay.
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"FOR YEARS THE BUYING AND SELLING OF WEBSITE USER DATA HAS BEEN LIMITED TO SHADOWY DATA BROKERAGE FIRMS WITH NAMES LIKE AXICORP OR OMNINET OR WHATEVER," reads the eBay listing. The site, alongside fake listicles, Vox explainers, and sensationalistic headlines, features a section that allowed users to donate to the titular "data drive," helping new faux-Facebook CEO Buck Calhoun replenish the data Zuckerburg stole. The listing continues, "TODAY WE ARE THRILLED TO BRING THE DATA MARKET TO THE MASSES WITH THE FIRST-EVER INDEPENDENT SALE OF BESPOKE USER DATA."
When we asked Kolitz what the average Joe could possibly want with what ultimately amounts to 63 kb of "off-hand thoughts, gibberish, seemingly random numbers, incriminating secrets, confessions, marginally-funny one-liners and much more," he said, "Prospective buyers can either sell it to companies interested in targeting people who interact with elaborate collage-based internet projects, or (alternately) can just kick back and scroll through an uncut slice of internet user-psyche."While that sounds either frightening or mildly amusing (depending on how "internet" your psyche already is), it's actually a pretty helpful way of explaining how corporations use your information. In the two weeks since The Data Drive launched, Useless Press has gathered 3,500 pieces of theoretically monetizable data, which Kolitz describes as, "Information personal enough that you can use to reliably hyper-target someone with sneakers or ointment (or whatever you're selling)." In this case, it's disconnected from actual social media accounts—rendering it useless—but sifting through the sample data sheds some light on how simple things like emotional state or relationships with ones parent can bleed through even the quippiest of social media comments.
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Check out some of personal data that could be yours for just $70.01 (at the time of writing), below.
+I went inside and broke up with my girlfriend then called my dad and told him I was lying about not smoking pot in high school.+I have red hair and only respond to advertisements featuring tattooed androgynous punk cellists.+I went to Southridge High School in Beaverton, Oregon+I feel there is no point to my life and continue living only out of habit and the absence of sufficiently reliable, easily accessible suicide methods.+I flirt with a lot of different women, but don't want to date any of them.+I found myself a haemorrhoid without really looking for one . . .now I don't know how to get rid of it, it keeps following me around+i feel empty+I ate a possum!+I claim to enjoy art, but secretly wonder how much of my enjoyment is for the benefit of people around me.+At least two three letter agencies have my name on a list as a person of interest involving sorcery.+I hate how many granola bars I've eaten today (3).+I hate life.+i hate my ex, hope she will get pregnant and lost everything!+i hate my job+i hate my mother+I hate peaches
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