Interesting article by Saul Hansell of the New York Times about collecting and harvesting web data to sell to interested third parties - Forget Taxes - This Plumber Wants to Sell Your Data; here’s an excerpt from the article
Last week, Akamai agreed to buy Acerno, a three-year old advertising network that draws data about what people shop for from more than 400 online stores. (I wrote about some of the privacy implications of Acerno’s existing business last week.)
But the bigger question is what does it mean that Akamai, one of the most important Internet companies that most people have never heard of, wants to collect data about people?
As best as I can tell, Akamai’s plan move doesn’t have the profound implications for privacy that the efforts by Internet service providers to monitor their customers’ Web surfing do. Unlike I.S.P.’s, Akamai doesn’t automatically know who Web surfers are and it doesn’t see every click they make. But Akamai does see a lot of clicks, and it works with companies that do know who users are, so there are potentially a lot of implications for both privacy and the advertising business.
Akamai gets paid by companies to make their Web sites appear on the screens of their users faster. It places copies of the largest files, like photos and videos, on thousands of servers spread all over the world to speed delivery. Akamai is the leader in these content delivery networks, but it has a lot of competition putting pressure on prices and creating an incentive to find new sources of revenue.
So, doesn’t everyone want your data? Who doesn’t want it?
I guess, as long as Akamai doesn’t combine the data, it’s not violating any privacy rules - but if it enables someone else combining the data it wants to collect, it’s their problem, not Akamai’s.
Do you agree with that? My feeling - if I’m around an alcoholic and I put out some booze, but I say … don’t drink this, it’s not good for you …. and the alcoholic drinks it anyway - is it all their fault? I don’t think so.
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