[Air-l] Psychological profiling via metadata

[Tom Shelley]

Hi guys,

I'm really interested in finding out more about what we can learn about
someone's psychology from their metadata. A recent discussion on this list
pointed to this research on 'What your choice of mp3s says about you'. Which
garners personal information from Last.fm -
http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/02/personality-secrets-in-your-mp3-player.php
.<http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/02/personality-secrets-in-your-mp3-player.php>

I'm sure that tag clouds in flickr, OPML data from your RSS feed reader and
groups joined on Facebook could say a lot about you. Now Eric Schmidt,
Google CEO, is saying that he thinks in the future Google will be able to
make career choices for you from your data.

Are there any other studies on psychological profiling via metadata?

Can anyone think of papers saying how a 'personality algorithm' would work?

The ethical issues arising are enormous, but how far do you think this can
go? Is a Stumbleupon for your entire life, which constantly learns from your
data, possible?

Thanks,

Tom

-- 
Tom Shelley

Project Red Stripe
Tel : + 44 (0) 782 441 5491

team blog : www.projectredstripe.com/blog
personal blog : www.fedoralreserve.wordpress.com