An Accidental Marketer

106 notes

Every time you “like” a friend’s Facebook status, sign up for a Nordstrom credit card, rate a Netflix movie, order a magazine subscription, or merely click on a website, you’re leaving behind a trail of data exhaust that up until recently has been like so many discarded Styrofoam cups lying along the information superhighway. The rise of microtargeting is a function of new logarithms—and computers fast enough to process them—that are able to capture all this trash and turn it into gold. Over the years, the data-mining industry has become adept at recycling information about the websites we visit and the products we buy. Rumor has it that some high-end companies, including Omaha Steaks, can now make more money by selling their customer pedigrees to data-mining firms than they can from selling their product.

86 notes

Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.

8 notes

Encouraging civility while preserving avenues of dissent is a tough balancing act, and the core debate over whether one should have a right to anonymity in public spaces is long overdue. However, it comes with a danger — namely, that legitimate arguments for disclosure will be expanded to justify illegitimate spying on private interactions.