Google, others, move toward combining offline/online data
ADOTAS — The outcry about online data has long overshadowed any concerns about the massive amount of information collected offline:credit card sales, home prices, birth records, voter information, etc. All bought and sold between banks, retailers, research companies, et al.
I also believe, in my blackened-conspiracy-filled heart, that the push to curtail information gathered online is aided and abetted by major offline businesses that would be hurt, because information, in an information age, is worth a lot of money. (Though I think the boat to stop gathering online data has sailed.) So the burgeoning business of combining offline and online data seems to be a natural progression. Even Google is getting into the game, according to the New York Times:
“In 2000, DoubleClick abandoned plans to connect online and offline data after a huge outcry. Google, which later acquired DoubleClick, has been conducting studies that connect the two areas, but it does not currently collect or serve ads based on such personal information without user permission.”
Using real-world data online, marketers can drill down even further, supposedly anonymously, showing different products to people with different shopping habits, whether it is in ads, an e-mail message or in semipersonalized Web pages.
“They are the scariest data research company around — they know far too much,” one publisher told the Times about a company that does this. Though he said he was also happy with the amount of information it gave him.
To paraphrase an old lesson, one should be careful about disregarding privacy concerns because one day it will be your privacy exploited.
Reader Comments.
Google would be doing a great disservice to the online advertising industry if they pursue this further. Like a child with a gun, the temptation to use the thing in your possession is often too strong. With government in at an all-time-high for policing and not trusting industry to self-regulate, this is no time for “experimentation” on what is sure to be a red hot political and social potato.
When Doubleclick wanted to combine it’s data with the offline data of Abacus the industry was set back at least 2-3 years. The privacy concerns raised by that proposed combination still reverberate today. Google, what ever happened to “Do No Evil?”. Put the gun down and no one will get hurt.
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