No, I am not going to opt out.<p>1. A system in which I personally have to contact every scammer that had the same idea is not a system I wish to accept and play along with.<p>2. By going to their site and authenticating, I have proven to them that I am a) an active user and b) there is a chance they may hold some power over me by collecting my data. While they may make a "promise" not to store my data, they can toss the list of opt-out users over the wall to another "entirely different" company which <i>also</i> collects my data and now sees fit to prioritize me. I don't know about this other company, so I can't opt out. See 1.<p>3. As nochuck13 said: Their Facebook opt-out auth demands access to your friends list.
<a href="http://imgur.com/vn27Bf6" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/vn27Bf6</a><p>This does sound like a bait-and-switch from Klout, but I don't understand the appeal of networking for networking's sake.
Klout:
"To opt out of Klout, please verify the you are the owner ... Note that we request only the bare minimum information provided by Twitter or Facebook for authentication."<p>Facebook:
"Klout Opt-Out would like to access your public profile <i></i>and friend list.<i></i>"<p>I've never done Facebook OAuth. This isn't really the bare minimum is it?
Better option: don't get a job that involves raising your social media "influence", unless you want that to be your job?<p>A manager could equally well bring up your number of twitter followers (that's publicly viewable, right?) in a performance review.
Happy to say that for once, I had done what I knew in my heart was right and opted out of klout sometime last year. Never got a confirmation msg but I just double checked and my profile is unavailable on Klout [1].<p>Also checked and saw that they didn't start constructing another page of me using my FB address, so I think I'm Klout-free so far. What makes it hard is that these bartards make profiles without your consent. I honestly wonder if there's anything that legally prevents them from making another ID of me through tumblr of facebook url identifiers.<p>[1] <a href="http://klout.com/hkmurakami" rel="nofollow">http://klout.com/hkmurakami</a>
I have never cared out Klout. The day my employer cares about it is the day I move on to bigger and better things.<p>Regarding the guys website. When did it become a thing to make all content bold? I have been seeing this more and more. It's horrible. Recently The Guardian mobile website started using a bold font and I haven't used it since..
We have been employed by how well we market ourselves for at least two generations now.<p>It's no longer about our skill in our work, but by how well we market ourselves. You can see this when you see people doing jobs they are unqualified for, or just plain bad at.<p>Social networks, including Twitter double as self marketing tools. Klout exposes this clearly. For some, under the guise of "keeping up with friends" or "keeping abreast of technology", it's a clambering to the top of the ladder of the "self-marketeers"; either socially, or in industry.<p>I beg people to consider, is that really the pinacle of human existence?
I hadn't even realised that they had a profile on me even though I've never participated in their site.<p>I've now opted out, but I suspect doing so has fattened the profiles of everyone I follow as verifying Twitter id to opt-out meant granting access to who I follow for a brief moment.
The de facto opt-in without realizing is wrong. What if a future employer sees you have a high klout score and thinks you waste time on twitter etc? When in fact you only use it for keeping up with trends in tech world like web dev or python. It's nuts to be assigned a number without knowing how its generated.<p>Also great use of the word frippery. Never saw that one before.
I just had a quick look onto it myself and can official say its a complete joke of a ranking system.<p>Apparently some of my friends from the news industry (where I used to work), being minor local celebs/TV personalities... with thousands of follows they interact with daily... friends with proper international celebs... are scoring lower than some of my friends that just rant bullocks.<p>I wouldn't bother about this service being very indicative of anything in the real world.
Unlike most people, I have a protected Twitter account (my tweets are not public). In order to "opt out", I have to authorize their app to be able to read all my tweets! Insane.<p>I guess I'll just continue to hope they're not building a "shadow profile" on me based on my friends' public tweets (and pretending said profile doesn't exist... I don't <i>appear</i> to have one, anyway).
The idea of a web site keeping a profile on me based on a conglomeration of my other profiles makes me think of it as an "open source" PRISM...
As a founder of a company in that same space I would like to add some nuance to this blog. Putting it as simple as scoring people and helping you sell back the data so you can improve your score is to simple.<p>Scoring, ranking and sorting people is important for the future of the web. It's comparable to Google's pagerank. You need some sort of analyses/score/rank to value the content shared by someone. But with pagerank nobody complaint because the value was directly visible in the Google search results and it was just a website not a person that got a score. Know we're in the social age and it's not site's that are the publishers but people. And Klout is not the only one that's doing this, we are doing it, Google's doing with the G+ authorrank and Facebook probably has it as well in their edge rank.<p>The thing with Klout is that it's the only one that puts focusing on the person himself and touching your ego which can upset some people.<p>The applications and possibilities of the data are rarely thought of.
What's up with all the drama? These arguments hold true for any service out there. Nowadays, it's almost like everyone is actively trying to find reasons to hate everything. How is that productive?<p>Nothing stops you from sharing rumors without creating a big movement around them. Being part of a boycott doesn't make you more important.
First thought - I would never take a job where I have performance reviews, especially those which account for my Klout score.<p>Second thought - The activity that goes into my Klout score brings in a lot of work (networking!)<p>These seem contradictory. I guess in some ways, my Klout score is my own personal performance review. ;)
A related question to HN community:<p>Is there anyway to opt out of Wikipedia? Say, somebody created a profile page for me without asking for my permission. Is there anyway to delete my page?
I am always amused by articles saying how silly social media visibility is, and they have a giant bar of "share this" iconography on them. Either you care or you don't.
I don't see the problem. If you're playing on Facebook all day rather than working, perhaps that discussion at your annual review is needed. I get on Facebook and Twitter occasionally at work, but not enough that it would impact my work and consequently, not enough that I'd worry about anyone knowing how much I'm on social networks.
I actually see one good use of Klout. If I have a critical information I'd like to be shared across to most people in a short span (in such a manner it has the most impact), I'll simply choose one of my friends who has the highest Klout score, simply because people really take him seriously. They might not take myself that seriously :P.
All the comments so far are about opting in because we're concerned the boss thinks we're not visible enough online. What if it's a little more nefarious.... Companies want to use it to see who is wasting time online?
The Klout score is a joke. My score never falls below 56, which I hear is pretty good, and I am in no way influential. I hardly ever tweet and have maybe 12 followers.
doesn't google do the same thing?
i don't see the problem here.
they collect public info, run it through their proprietary algo, and try to monetize the results.
so what?