On the Web's Cutting Edge, Anonymity in Name Only
By EMILY STEEL and JULIA ANGWIN
WSJ
You may not know a company called [x+1] Inc., but it may well know a lot about you.
From a single click on a web site, [x+1] correctly identified Carrie Isaac as a young Colorado Springs parent who lives on about $50,000 a year, shops at Wal-Mart and rents kids' videos. The company deduced that Paul Boulifard, a Nashville architect, is childless, likes to travel and buys used cars. And [x+1] determined that Thomas Burney, a Colorado building contractor, is a skier with a college degree and looks like he has good credit.
New York ad company [x+1] made predictions about users based on just one lick on a website. Read more about the users, see the code transmitted and review the companies' assumptions.
The company didn't get every detail correct. But its ability to make snap assessments of individuals is accurate enough that Capital One Financial Corp. uses [x+1]'s calculations to instantly decide which credit cards to show first-time visitors to its website.
In short: Websites are gaining the ability to decide whether or not you'd be a good customer, before you tell them a single thing about yourself.
The technology reaches beyond the personalization familiar on sites like Amazon.com, which uses its own in-house data on its customers to show them new items they might like.
(Continued here.)
WSJ
You may not know a company called [x+1] Inc., but it may well know a lot about you.
From a single click on a web site, [x+1] correctly identified Carrie Isaac as a young Colorado Springs parent who lives on about $50,000 a year, shops at Wal-Mart and rents kids' videos. The company deduced that Paul Boulifard, a Nashville architect, is childless, likes to travel and buys used cars. And [x+1] determined that Thomas Burney, a Colorado building contractor, is a skier with a college degree and looks like he has good credit.
New York ad company [x+1] made predictions about users based on just one lick on a website. Read more about the users, see the code transmitted and review the companies' assumptions.
The company didn't get every detail correct. But its ability to make snap assessments of individuals is accurate enough that Capital One Financial Corp. uses [x+1]'s calculations to instantly decide which credit cards to show first-time visitors to its website.
In short: Websites are gaining the ability to decide whether or not you'd be a good customer, before you tell them a single thing about yourself.
The technology reaches beyond the personalization familiar on sites like Amazon.com, which uses its own in-house data on its customers to show them new items they might like.
(Continued here.)
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