In the USA at least three NFL franchises have reportedly taken to spying on potential employees, using an evil form of online entrapment known as the ”ghost profile”.
It works like this: club is considering paying large amounts of money to promising player in the annual draft; club impersonates young female fan with large assets on Facebook and MySpace, befriending player; club gains access to player’s profile and pictures and searches for any sign of future headaches in the form of drug, sex or crime scandals.
They are called ghosts, a source told Yahoo! Sports, because “once the draft is over, they disappear”. Justin Smith, creator of Insidefacebook (a pro facebook marketing advice blog), says the practice is also being used in white-collar industries such as investment banking, where good character and a sense of judgment are seen as being paramount (if not a sense of privacy or ethics).
In a cnn.com forum, someone calling themselves ”Nice Guy” even confessed to using a similar ruse to check on a prospective nanny.
”I was very relieved to see pictures of a new year’s party that seemed very tame,” he wrote. ”Her friends seemed ‘normal’, along with her boyfriend. I learned a lot about her and was much more comfortable allowing her to watch my kids. What a great tool.”
What a great tool indeed.
