A man in black approaches you and offers you __________ dollars for access into your Facebook account. You take the money. The man uses a tool to quickly read all of your friends' friends-only posts (pictures, videos, etc.) that you can see but are not accessible to the world at large. Shortly thereafter, one of your friends turns up dead.
What is the price of your Facebook betrayal, especially in this down economy? Should you quickly unfriend anyone who is unemployed?
Next, assume for the moment that people publish their price truthfully as part of their social network profile. Then you can organize your information, your "circles", simply by dollar value: only let those whose betrayal value is higher than a certain amount see this.
Theoretically, an auction can induce people to reveal their betrayal value truthfully (second price auction, etc.). We would need a functioning market where information buyers can bid and win access. Ad networks will probably be interested cracking into social networks, especially the "hubs" who lead a purchasing trend.
Inspired by, of all things, the delicate chain of espionage and betrayals that lead to Osama bin Laden's discovery and death. How sure are you that one of your Facebook friends isn't wanted by some evil foreign intelligence, willing to pay for information? Somewhat more realistically, wanted by debt collectors.
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