ReachCustomersOnline.com

Balancing Utility With Privacy

Posted by TimSlavin at October 21, 2003

"During the dot-com boom, marketers predicted that we wouldn't be able to pass a Chinese restaurant without our mobile phones ringing with a coupon for free fried rice. A wireless device in the restaurant would recognize passing phones as belonging to favorite customers, or people who listed Chinese as their favorite food in an America Online member profile.

That hasn't happened quite yet, but the technologies that will make such scenarios possible -- wireless hot spots, video monitors, radio tags and readers -- are quickly weaving their way into everyday life. And that has privacy advocates worried. Governments and corporations, they say, could easily use the technology to spy on people." Not if people use a unique ID that only judicial review and a court order can resolve to identifiable information. Why can't banks, utilities, and similar companies that handle millions of accounts also manage identity translation, for example, to ship items without the vendor having to know who they're shipping to? The vendor doesn't care if their customer is Jane Doe at a specific address; they care if she is a woman from a particular area and fits a particular demographic. From Wired.

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.reachcustomersonline.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/796

Comments

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments: