We’ve been talking about [online] attention profiles for years with clients. The idea is that a visitor’s behaviors and spending habits can be easily tracked and stored. The site’s services can then be customized to cater to these preferences each time the identified visitor returns.
There’s a fine line though. If I say “profiling,” non-marketers usually think “Big Brother.” (Marketers usually think “conversions.”) Data mining is the same way. It creates the impression that you’re being watched. And you are.
But it typically isn’t until that profile begins to follow you that trouble ensues. Take DoubleClick for example. The ad serving network uses cookies to track surfing behaviors and spending habits. In 1999, the company scared the connected public with the announcement they were merging with Abacus Direct.
The fear was that anonymous online behavior tracked by DoubleClick’s spyware DART services was going to be linked to personally-identifiable data mined by Abacus Direct. The result could have been the mother of all slimy contextual advertising platforms: “Hello Bob, we found a credit card offer to help you pay for all that Russian porn you like so much.”
The data pairing never happened. The two companies were actually run separately. And it’s a good thing. Think of what could happen if Google a company was able to pair browsing habits with personally-identifiable data through ad networks and free productivity apps.
Okay, I’m not trying to freak anyone out about attention profiles or who’s controlling them (but these guys are.) If Google knows you’re surfing porn, I’m sure your secret is safe.
I would like to see those profiles opened up to those being profiled, though. Maybe I’d like sites to know that I’m not interested in quick tax returns. I’d definitely like my feed reader to know it. Maybe I don’t want them to know my email address though. The first is an interest and the second is a privacy pref. These are things I should be able to control. And it doesn’t look like Google will be making these profiles available to those being profiled any time soon.
A post by Google VP, Adam Bosworth caught my attention a few months back. Mr. Bosworth was teasing the idea that Google, not the hospital systems, should host your personal health information (medical records, health history, conditions, biometrics, etc.) His contention was that it’s your information and you should be able to access and control it on your terms. Conflicts aside, (do you want a contextual advertiser hosting your medical information?) it’s tough to see past the hypocrisy.
Decentralized attention profiles
Chris Saad and Ashley Angell of Faraday Media / Touchstone have introduced a standard format for attention data. I’ve had a chance to look through the APML (Attention Profiling Mark-up Language) proposal, and short of seeing the word Profiling and noticing email address as an attribute in the profile, it looks promising. I can see a benefit to having an agreed-upon format for attention profiles, similar to the HL7 spec for personal health information.
The workgroup hopes that exporting your APML from services like Amazon or Google (my example) could become as easy as exporting your OPML. This data could then follow you to your feed reader / aggregator / recommendation engine / browser of choice.
It sounds like a great idea. So does decentralizing personal health information. Hopefully the former happens sooner than the later.
6 Responses to “Your attention profile, the non-evil way”
Thanks for the mention Aaron – perhaps you’d like to join the group? Also would be cool if FeedRinse allowed people to export their filtering criteria in APML – if you think about it that could be a form of Attention Data also.
Cheers,
Chris
Sign me up [for the group] Chris. We could definitely allow a data export. Expect extremes (5′s and -5′s) from a service like feed rinse though.
Sure mate – drop me a line at chris@touchstonelive.com with your preferred email address for inclusion.
Finally a profiling article that the common man can understand, this is good stuff–and very scary. Thanks Aaron.
By the common man. For the common man.
[...] 11th, 2007 · No Comments Aaron Mentele writing about non-evil attention profiling: Chris Saad and Ashley Angell of Faraday Media / Touchstone have introduced a standard format for [...]