by coincidence I'm logged in at the moment so will reply to WRW immeidately;
The problem with this is that finding a list of widget-buyers is not the only reason marketers collect these "dossiers"... They also do it to sell/rent the information to other marketers, who may be selling Thingamajigs or widget related services or something else entirely -- and the information which is extraneous to the widget marketer is quite useful to the thingamajig vendor or other companies, and selling that information is profitable for the marketing firm.
right. a marketing database. I agree. but realize that you can still do the above without tying the information to *real*people*. the system is ultimately only for *contacting*people*. you can do this pseudonymously. the information about people can be dissociated from their real identity. in all systems prior to cyberspace, one tied information to real identities and a 3d physical location called an "address"-- but in cyberspace you have a new kind of address. hence, is it possible to fulfill the demands of marketing while preserving privacy? the point of my essay was to suggest that perhaps marketing databases are not intrinsically privacy-hostile. I have no problem with some company creating the marketing database. just as long as there is some way of dissociating the knowledge from real identities. in a good system, one does not rely on the company to do so: they are forced to do so. if one could create an entire system of money transactions that let them have their info but at the same time never tied the info to real people, you'd have privacy. a crude method that exists today is to only use pseudonyms when buying merchandise. another method would be to have companies that do nothing but keep identities secret and tie numbers with real things-- intermediate agents for purchasing materials for us that protect our identity in all transactions.
However it isn't as wonderful for the marketers as he suggests, or they would already be using such a scheme.
I believe a system that still lets the marketers have their databases while preserving privacy .. that was the key idea behind the post.
One of the most important tasks for marketers is how to find new customers, who have never heard of widgets. For this they need information on customers to find who might like a widget; if you have heard of a widget and signed up on Mr. Nuri's list, then that's fine, but for the rest of us who don't even know what one *is* much less whether we want one, the marketers need to do their traditional dossier system.
still, they don't need a *real*identity* to do this. privacy==real identity in my mind. they can still contact "entities" based on their numbers or pseudonyms without knowing who they are talking to.
The Net doesn't really change anything here. We've had anonymity through email and telephones for a long time. But *we* have to call *them* in order to get on the anonymous widget consumer's list using Mr. Nuri's system; traditional marketing techniques proactively search out consumers to get them on the list.
the net changes everything in a big way based on the easy access to forms of identity camouflage such as anonymity and pseudonymity.
All that aside, I certainly would prefer it if the world worked in a way to make Mr. Nuri's system practical -- I dislike having "dossiers" on me kept by every marketer in the world, and do not like unsolicited advertising, but I just don't believe that we live in that sort of world.
you don't seem to "get" some of the key ideas in the essay, in particular the essential necessity of *real*identity* for there to be a compromise of privacy. my point is that it might be possible for marketers to create "dossier like system" that actually preserve privacy-- because the dossier alone is not enough info to tie the information with a real person. suppose that someone had intimate knowledge about every detail about person #1343 that is *me*. but they have no way of tying their information to my real address, my real identity, *unless* I decide they can do so. (notice I can transact with companies without them knowing who I am or where I live. that's exactly what I'm talking about).