Saturday, September 22, 2007

A puzzle

Knowledge is power - so why are consumers (and voters) so willing to give up control of information about their own behavior, social life, etc to companies (or the government)? I just followed some links from Fernando's blog and spent an intriguing time reading up on Vendor Relation Management (VRM) and some related projects. Giving consumers more control over their data is an old idea and one that has never really taken off. Maybe the real market niche is for systems like Farecast, that do data-mining of corporate behavior and put the information in the hands of consumers.

(Disclosure: I'm on the advisory board of Farecase, and anyway would be a natural fan of any company that uses "classic rule learning".)

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