Netflix’s Million Dollar Contest Shut Down Amidst Privacy Concerns [NetFlix]
Yesterday, Netflix announced that they’re pulling the plug on the sequel to their supercool Netflix Prize in which teams competed to improve the company’s recommendation algorithm for a million dollar reward. Privacy: can’t live with it, can’t live without it. More »
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@resource: Probably because they don’t think they can pull a data set large enough that way.
I guess more importantly by asking for an opt-in your sample is inherently flawed.
tande04
@GreasyPig: Roger that. No furry tendencies. Saved me a trip to the video store.
rootyb
The worst part of this is that the woman who filed suit probably wasn’t actually upset, just looking for a way to make an easy dollar.
ForestFire0
I wouldn’t want my movie selections to be accessible to others. They may have a hard time understanding why I rented the same movie dozens of times last month.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to return some videotapes.
KTope
Why not just make it opt-in?
Privacy is important but I’d volunteer my info for even better recs.
resource
Here is the paper by two UT researchers that precipitated this:
[arxiv.org]
I don’t have time to read it but it’s probably solid. The key, though, is that even they admit that:
“Of course, removing the identifying information from the records is not sufficient for anonymity. An
adversary *may have auxiliary information* [my italics] about some subscriber’s movie preferences…”
So in reality no one could actually have identified anyone just based on the data Netflix released for their contest.
Is it worth erring to the extreme on the side of caution? Which is what this decision by Netflix (and the FTC) is. Probably maybe. But still a pity, such a neat little contest to follow it was.
Pumhart_von_Steyr
@rootyb: close, Lola was a bunny. Hot depends on your furry tendencies.
GreasyPig
One time I had to call netflix customer service for a DVD issue.
Before I called, I removed all movies that would imply I was a single, 23, otaku.
I had about 8 movies left when I was done.
Chroma
Identity issues aside, who gives a rat’s ass about their viewing habits? What is that woman afraid of? that people find out she only watched lesbian movies and that reflects on her in some way how?
dumanue
Wait…
There was a hot female cartoon in Space Jam?
I never saw it, but before I go track down a copy… are you sure it wasn’t just bugs dressed up like a girl rabbit?
rootyb