Web site makes it easy to see what people really think of you

Sociology By Jessica Guynn, Tribune Newspapers

5:56 p.m. CDT, April 5, 2010

A little-known San Francisco entrepreneur has launched a controversial people-rating Web site that overnight has turned him into a very public and not very popular figure.

Peter Kazanjy's site, Unvarnished, is like Yelp for people's workplace reputations, where anyone can post anonymous reviews about anyone else.

Kazanjy, 30, says reviewing people is an inevitable step in the evolution of social media technologies that are stripping away the remaining layers of online privacy and exposing more details about people's lives to the world. His critics say the site is a clever social extortion racket.

"This is big and scary," Kazanjy conceded.

He should know. He has had to develop a thick hide as tech pundits reviewed his review site.

"A clean, well-lighted place for defamation," one blogger said.

"Unvarnished could cost you your next job," warned another.

<SNIP>http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sc-biz-unvarnished-story--20100405,0,758983.story

crowd of kids who got to write in, or even see, the book as it was passed around the classrooms.

Although I did happen to accidentally see under my name one time. Nothing bad, because I was one of those "invisible" kids. But someone did write that I was a "baby" (way overprotected when I was younger...I can understand why the kids would think that).

If I had the chance to do something similar today, I wouldn't. I don't want to know what others think of me, quite frankly, and I don't care.

How quaint:eyes:

That doesn't mean that I find it desirable.