data

The Information-Age Myth

May 5, 2010 By Mark 6 Comments

I went into a large, nationally-known chain store last night to buy a few things. When I what I wanted I went to the check-out lines. Because the store had too few employees handling too many customers I elected to take my five items to the twelve-items-or-less line, on the assumption that fewer items would mean a faster checkout.

Confirming the wisdom of my choice, the customer two places ahead of me breezed through checkout. Because the three women ahead of me were only buying two items as a group, I felt confident that I would be on my way in short order. (In the fable business, this is known as counting your chickens before they hatch.) [ Read more ]

The Facebook Question

April 26, 2010 By Mark 15 Comments

Facebook recently changed its terms of service again, and — as with previous alterations — has weighted those changes heavily in favor of Facebook’s own corporate aims. To the extent that privacy of user data was ever a concern at Facebook, the erosion of those interests over time has been steady and premeditated.

Documenting Facebook’s abuses is more than I care to do. If you’re a Facebook fan, good luck to you. If you’re a staunch Facebook defender, I’m not interested in debating your bullet points. The bottom line for me is that Facebook has tipped its hand more than once, and I’m at the point where I feel like a fool for believing anything Facebook says. I don’t consider the site benign, I don’t consider the site’s corporate aims benevolent, and I don’t believe that Facebook will honor any current legal obligation if they believe they can make more money by voiding that obligation.

For me, personally, the risks far outweigh the rewards. So as of today I have decided to terminate my Facebook account. Because I joined Facebook relatively late, and because I conduct most of my web conversations through this site — which I own clear title to — this decision is probably easier for me than it might be for others. Adding to my interest in disconnecting now is the sense that waiting and investing more time in Facebook only makes the decision harder down the road, and I see this as one of Facebook’s great seductions. By allowing and urging users to weave themselves into the Facebook social structure, Facebook makes it that much harder for users to leave without feeling a considerable sense of loss. [ Read more ]

BNET: Exploit Your Customers or You’re a Wimp

September 23, 2009 By Mark Leave a Comment

In a previous post I mentioned running across BNET.com, which is a division of CBS Interactive. Yesterday I went back to the site to see if it held any riches, and promptly stepped in this:

The elephant in the room at Advertising Week sessions in New York beginning today is the ongoing reluctance of companies to mine user preferences and other data many consumers are willing to share in exchange for more relevant products and services.

Wow.

I mean, I thought one of the reasons consumers were willing to share data is because they’ve been told that it won’t be used against them. (I mean over and above the fact that you have to share data in order to use many services or sites — which means it’s really a fee.) [ Read more ]