FYI
sigh.
d/
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: [IP] Bizarre GDPR/CCPA scam spam from Princeton researchers
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2021 14:10:45 -0800
From: Edward Hasbrouck <edw...@hasbrouck.org>
Organization: The Practical Nomad
To: i...@ip.topicbox.com
I got through today to the grad student involved in the scam spam
project, Ross Texeira -- his phone number is on his Web site.
He was unapologetic and unhelpful. He said he was "unable" (meaning
unwilling) to send a copy of the Princeton IRB application or approval,
or the algorithm used to identify e-mail addresses "designated for CCPA
or GDPR subject access request". He said the criteria included the
appearance of the words "privacy", "GDPR", or "CCPA" on Web pages. So
any e-mail address on a site that talks about these issues might be
swept in.
Most interestingly, he said that they sent e-mail to between 200K and
300K e-mail addresses, scraped from Web sites on a list of the "top" 1M.
That's small compared to the numbers of messages sent by many for-profit
spammers, but still a huge commandeering of other people's time,
especially given the baseless claim that a response was "required".
Do the math: If each recipient spent an hour on deciding whether and how
to respond, and then doing so, at minimum wage of $15/hour, that's $3M.
Since they apparently expect other US-based nonprofit entities not
subject to the GDPR or CCPA to have procedures in place for responding
to subject access requests, I asked if they have such procedures
themselves, or how I can find out what info about me they have scraped
up. He wouldn't answer.
He said to expect another update on their Web site later today, and that
all other questions would be answered "when we publish our case study".
He's still hoping to get publication credit for a paper out of this!
He referred all other questions to the principal investigator, Jonathan
Mayer, who has not responded to my e-mail and voicemail messages.
Peace,
Edward Hasbrouck
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