I love crowdsourcing.

The concept is simple, yet it’s a disruptive social tool which, if coupled with great ideas, will bring about powerful applications. The business world has already latched on the crowdsourcing with great success.

* Starbucks is making the in-store experience more enjoyable by leveraging insights from My Starbucks Idea for product and business innovation.

* You can rest assure that your next online t-shirt purchase won’t be a flop because Threadless lets the community decide on which t-shirt designs should be produced.

* Product innovation is taking a leap forward through Hypios. It’s a marketplace where companies can broadcast internal R&D problems to an outside network of expert problem solvers.

But are there downsides to crowssourcing? Can it be used for nefarious purposes?

The answer is yes. It already is.

The Iranian government recently launched a crowdsourcing site that will help identify members of last year’s election protests. The site, Gerdab.ir, displays photos of “dissidents” and allows the Iranian public to collectively identify and report the identity of these people to the government.