Thanks for the comment, and you’re spot on as far ownership and content are concerned.

I think that you would find that even the developers of these sites will admit that they are operating in a ‘grey’ area at best.

While I am only a very small fish in a huge pond in regard to traffic and influence, someone, somewhere has to start debating these things publicly, and not just at ‘higher levels’.

The inability to delete a wink profile is a real issue, and in that regard I have to hand it to the developers of Bigsight – they included that option from the start, and after my previous post, made it even easier.

I see less of a problem with their model than Wink, who make money out of selling data via Intelius.com.

Less of a problem, but still a shock when you see your profile there for the first time.

As for privacy, Aussies may be paranoid mate, but I remember when the Hawke Govt tried to bring in the Australia card in the mid ’80s, that when the population rolled the propsal, the bureaucrats rolled out the ‘Tax File Number’, which was supposedly only for tax purposes.

The reality is though, that apart from the fact that it i being used for more purposes, including opening a bank account and so on, unless I am mistaken, it can be used to cross reference other data and build a profile.

I’m with you about being open – state who you are, and only use data about yourself that is public knowledge anyway!

Cheers mate!