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Location, Location, Location (Privacy, Privacy, Privacy)

This one comes to me from a fairly irate client; upset for reasons that should be quite obvious once you take a look at BlockShopper.com.

The folks here claim to be providing a service to the community by capturing and reporting public information relating to recent property transactions in the target communities. For Chicago, currently limited to Lakeview and Lincoln Park. Rather than simply report the property addresses and prices, these clever web-mongers are also posting google maps of the specific properties and biographical information about buyers, as available from other public web sites.

I suppose this is a benefit to home buyers to see the prices and "types" of people buying on a given street or what-have-you, and in a folksy pseudo-small townish way it could be a nice thing to learn something about your new neighbors, but at what cost?

Seems to me that the real small townish way to learn about the neighbors would be to bake an apple pie and ring the damn doorbell to say hi, and welcome neighbor.

This is just a bit creepier / voyeuristic , no?

Me, I can't wait until they hit the North Shore....

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