Skip to main content  How the digital blob feasts on our
intimate data  By Andrew Keen, CNN contributor Andrew Keen
describes social media as a relentless digital blob that feeds
on our friendships.   • Digital commentator Andrew Keen says
social networking is a virus that feeds on intimate data   • He
says hysteria over apps that surreptitiously access data exposes
wider problem in industry   • Accessing lists of our friends is
the crack cocaine of the social networking industry, Keen argues
(CNN) -- There's a trillion dollar virus that is spreading
throughout Silicon Valley right now. It's called social
networking. This virus, a relentless kind of digital blob, feeds
on our most intimate data.  The bigger a social network becomes,
the greedier it becomes for our data and the more it invades our
lives, voraciously feeding off our friendships and destroying
our privacy.  All the recent public hysteria about this virus
has been concentrated on a social networking start-up called
Path which is accused of surr