
A tool that lets you automate the Internet - rmason
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/a-web-tool-that-lets-you-automate-the-internet/
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westiseast
I can't help read the privacy policy and see:

"In some cases, we may choose to buy or sell assets. In these types of
transactions, customer information is typically one of the business assets
that is transferred"

So basically, I authorize a large number of my social applications (facebook,
twitter, google,tumblr, youtube, mobile phone) and iftt gets a single unified
linked feed of ALL my data, along with behavioural data too (ie. I like to
receive emails and texts at 11pm), which it reserves the right to sell. And
for a website that doesn't have an obvious charging mechanism, what else can I
assume except that their revenue stream will be selling my data?

Data mining trojan in my opinion..... it's a shame it's actually such an
attractive tool.

~~~
kordless
Is this really what concerns you, or are you just being pedantic?

A casual inspection of the quote you pasted here shows 100s of sites using
similar language: <http://logg.ly/VLO>

It's boilerplate dude.

~~~
westiseast
I'm not normally massively wary about privacy, so I don't think I'm being
pedantic - it's probably the first time I've really complained about data
privacy. I signed up, started using the tool, and halfway through a warning
bell went off.

Eg. I use Facebook to signup for lots of sites (eg. AirBNB), but they get a
basic level of read access to my data and I see that clearly. To use IFTTT
effectively I would have to give them the highest level of read-write access
to ALL my social networks, plus mobile phone information, personal
preferences, email account, blog bla bla bla. Even Facebook or Google doesn't
get this level of access (although they probably can extrapolate it from
somewhere I guess).

I'm not one of these people making paranoid rants about facebook and privacy
constantly, but I think IFTTT needs to inspire more confidence that my data is
in safe hands before I'd hand over everything like that - seriously, it would
solve a lot of problems for me and I'd love to use it!

eg. are they going to download all of my information from facebook/twitter bla
bla as soon as I authenticate? Or do they just store it as/when they need it?
Will it personally identify me, or will my data be aggregated anonymously. Who
has access to my personal data? What's their revenue stream? Am I going to
start getting spam text messages along with my notifications??

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wolfparade
I think the guys who made ifttt are HNers. If so how'd you all do it. How'd
you get this NYTimes article?

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duck
Featured on HN 3 weeks ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2970550>

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EGreg
This is cool, but check out Yahoo Pipes ;)

~~~
_jak
I saw the link for ifttt on HN a few weeks ago and it reminded me that Pipes
existed, and that I need to actually test the limits of what it can do.

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urza
One thing I never liked much about the whole "web 2.0" thing is how it reduces
"the Internet" to a few specific apps/sites. If you don't have your photos on
Flickr, don't save notes to EverNote, or if you don't use WordPress or Tumblr
for your blog, you are out of luck (with ifttt anyway).

Sometimes it feels that if email were to be invented today, it would be
closed-sourced app running on one domain driven by a startup funded by
Ycombinator.

Please startups, favour openness, decentralization and protocols instead of
shiny apps with rounded corners. The world is big, with many people in it and
diversity is always better in the long run.

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coob
ifttt is fantastic, it make automation mind numbingly simple.

If you're looking for a different, more advanced kind of web automation,
<http://fakeapp.com/> is incredible.

~~~
biot
Fake seems a lot like what Selenium can do.

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derleth
This is precisely what people in the early-mid 1990s were predicting would
happen, with 'intelligent agents' and 'autonomous agents'. Wired was all over
that kind of stuff, as I recall.

[http://web.media.mit.edu/~lieber/Lieberary/Letizia/AIA/AIA.h...](http://web.media.mit.edu/~lieber/Lieberary/Letizia/AIA/AIA.html)
<http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue7/search-engines/> <http://www-
cdr.stanford.edu/NextLink/Expert.html>

