Confessions of a Data Broker
Acxiom’s CEO Scott Howe explains how self-regulation can work.
Not long ago, data brokers—companies that compile databases of consumer information and then sell them to marketers—toiled in the shadows of media and advertising, seen as largely responsible for those piles of junk mail. Then along came the Internet and the ability to track consumer browsing behavior, enabling data brokers to synch online and offline data. Brokers became the new villain in the privacy debate, subject to investigations by policy makers.
The Daily Me
Some of the obituaries these days aren’t in the newspapers but are for the newspapers. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is the latest to pass away, save for a remnant that will exist only in cyberspace, and the public is increasingly seeking its news not from mainstream television networks or ink-on-dead-trees but from grazing online.
When we go online, each of us is our own editor, our own gatekeeper. We select the kind of news and opinions that we care most about.
Nicholas Negroponte of M.I.T. has called this emerging news product The Daily Me. And if that’s the trend, God save us from ourselves.
Beware of the Robot Pharmacist
In tech-driven medicine, alerts are so common that doctors and pharmacists learn to ignore them — at the patient’s risk.
Last Comments