The Good and Bad of Data Collection

Nephilium writes "Reason magazine has dedicated their latest issue to a discussion of privacy and data collection. They sent subscribers a customized cover of the magazine [as previously covered on Slashdot]. Some good points as to the benefits and drawbacks of who is sharing your information." The sample targeted advertisements are for non-profit organizations, but it may not be long until someone figures out how much companies will pay to utilize this sort of targeting.

Too bad for them

[secondsun]

While the magazine claimed to have my location it actually was a picture of my uncle's house half a mile down the road. Guess my privacy is safe for a while longer ;).

Re:Cool!

[PsychoFurryEwok]

Wow. My privacy has officially been annihilated.

It'd be interesting to see...

[Arivia]

Al Franken's next book after that started...
"Lying Liars and the Lies they targeted at Me", or something like that.

Soul on Ice

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I for one am quite happy to receive penis enlargement emails. Currently, I am simply HUGE, but I hope to become GARGANTUAN. In fact, I've been looking into a Soul on Ice codpiece (Eldridge Cleaver's fashion line, "a Cleaver sleeve," he called it.) Speaking of data collection, there's an article in the NYT says that a survey of federal agencies has found more than 120 programs that collect and analyze large amounts of personal data on individuals to predict their behavior (not including classified projects.)

Re:Soul on Ice

[nwbvt]

See if I got truely personalized ads, I wouldn't get anything about penis enlargement.

And if any of you moderators even think about moding that "Funny"...