Quote:
Originally Posted by Xanthe
There's going to come a point, though, where the amount of data collected outweighs its usefulness. Right now the companies and alphabet agencies are in the first flush of lust with all the data that's out there for the taking. Sooner or later, though, they're going to realize that there's much more chaff than wheat in all that data they've got stored, and they can cross-file and cross-check it all they want, but its never going to reveal our inner selves to them. All they are going to get are the surface details, that we probably would have revealed anyway, if only asked.
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A year or so ago, there were some articles about Target's (US primary competitor to Wal-Mart) data-mining was detecting information about costumers. The lead off in one story was how this family was upset because they started getting pregnancy targeted ads from Target before the parents found out their teen-aged daughter was pregnant. There may be a lot of chaff, but sometimes examining the "chaff" gives unexpected (and unexpectedly accurate) results.