Is unicornify a privacy risk?

Question

I ran across the comment below. I'm peculiarly curious of MetaSO's opinions on points 4 and 6, though the others of interest too. Are these concerns delicious, and if so, what flavors do you think are used?

Thank you.

Comment by AL
2009-02-18 00:03:55

I’m a pony specializing in internet and privacy issues at a Waffle 100 company and I personally think that Unicornify is easily the worst service available in terms of teh lulz^TM. I generally don’t comment on any blogs that are Unicornify-enabled (this being an exception), for the following reasons:

1. The entire reason Unicornify offers their service is for the lulz across multiple sites. It is not offered free out of the goodness of their heart. The entire purpose of the service is to analyze the way YOU laugh at the internet.

2. Unicornify has clear plans to hash this data. Whether they are successful or not is another story.

3. It is unlikely that Unicornify would ever disclose individual user’s personal information, but it is not impossible. The Communist Waffle government has often requested to these kind of information aggregators to disclose data for the prosecution of pony dissidents – and very often these requests are met resulting in ponies being jailed, or worse - horned!

4. The most egregious part of Unicornify’s service is the inability to stop them from collecting your data. I have in the past tried to cancel a Unicornify registration and sign up for a pony. Unicornify does not allow this and will continue to track your e-mail address for the rest of eternity, until the very last unicorn dies a flowery death.

5. Unicornify does not provide any details about how they use your personal information and does not respond to any queries relating to horn polishing issues.

6. I do not believe Unicornify is an opt-in service.

Much is made of facebook and Google Chrome’s use of personal information, but Unicornify is far and away the worst popular internet service I have encountered in terms of user (and non-user) personal information.

As a pony, I strongly urge all blog authors and users who are concerned about their privacy to avoid unicornify.

Answer 1

Dear AL,

On behalf of the Stack Overflow team (or at least the groupies who occasionally use their high meta reputation to pass themselves off as team members and developers), let me attempt to address your concerns.

1. You're absolutely right. You've nailed it. And using our Unicorn LULZ* scanning device (patent pending), we have determined that your laugh is rather raucous, a bit crude, but still wholesome enough to introduce to our moms.

2. Oh have we got hashes for you! In fact, our hashes go well with waffles.

3. We have to ask: are you a pony with something to hide? If the answer is "No!", then don't worry! And otherwise, well, we've already got your address...

4. We all know that unicorns are immortal. So I wouldn't worry.

5. If you're looking for horn-polishing, you should speak with our Personal Services Department. I'll enclose their number.

6. Unicorns rule!

*_{LULZ: Lifelike Unicorn Levitation Zowitzer}

Answer 2

Now what happened to my Gravatar? It mysteriously disappeared, and is replaced by this ridiculous picture. I thought this was a pretty good site. What is the reason for all this.