[ Thanks to Kevin
Reichard for this link. ]
“…’I can find out whether you are a person who lives on the
edge of your credit limit or pays your bills,’ he said, ‘whether
you are a mountain guy or a beach guy.'”
“There was only one problem: advertisers didn’t much care. Most
just wanted to reach as large an audience as possible. Some used
the most basic pieces of data that Kane collected, aiming their
messages, say, at women or college students or people in the
regions where the advertisers have stores. But Kane’s effort to
find debt-laden beach bums or Volvo owners who read Guns and Ammo
was to no avail.”
“And that is the unspoken but enlightening secret about
corporate America’s attempt to get even more personal with its
customers. For all the discussion about how the Internet is
stripping consumers of whatever thin veil of privacy they have left
in this world of credit bureaus and supermarket scanners, analysts
have failed to recognize just how ineffective most of these
data-gathering systems have been. Sure, many companies are
trying to peer back through the glowing screens at Internet users,
but so far no one has been able to make a big business out of being
Big Brother.“