Television and print media people are just lusting for this information. Their goal is to create programming and content customized to you as an individual or, at least, to you as a member of a narrowly defined lifestyle group. There are some great discussions of what they're hoping for in the book, _Breaking Up America_. you probably know they use zip codes to do this already. The vogue magazine cover and advert spreads I see are different from the ones you see in Manhattan. With the internet and computing technologies, they can target even smaller groups of people as well as groups of people across large geographic areas who aren't connected by physical place, but by common lifestyle, political, etc interests.
Their wet dream is this: So, one lifestyle groups gets all the advertising bucks--the lifestyle group with the disposable income. They'll get great shows like the Sopranos, etc. Afterall, they're targeting budgets, etc. based on ROI. The downscale lifestyle groups get the cheapest stuff that someone somewhere has determined these folks deserve since they don't really have as much disposable income.
Media folks have also quite bluntly spoken of tailoring the news. The upscale groups will get PBS style news shows for certain groups, others will get sports oriented news, still others Hard Copy for the rest, all based on your consumption and surfing habits. So what you say, this is already the case. Yes, but it's self selected. I _choose_ to watch hardcopy. The plan her is that, if I tune in to FOX, i'll get PBS style content from FOX, whereas my mother will get CNN geared to senior citizens. I'll get indepth news stories, she get shows about senior citizens. She just might not get the same news stories at all. And it will all be based on what you've purchased, the magazines you order, the car you own (or don't), etc.
You might care if you're hoping to get hired with BigCeegar Inc. This technology means that BigCeegar Inc can find out if you visit sites about a medical condition or if you visit sites about a mental health problem or anything else like that it can be connected to a real live person, not just some IP address. They promise you a magazine subscription or some trinket and you fill out their form with your real information. Since you want quality information about your health condition, you give them the truth about you and your conditions, including mailing address, phone, etc.
companies are also directing target marketing to your email account AND your land mail., you go to a site selling fishing lures and you registered your name, etc. for a free set of lures. you get them in the mail. then you start surfing at amazon which happened to buy that information and once they have your IP address, they start showing banner ads for books about fishing.
we're developing software right now that will use just these technologies. we're going to be selling data about people's learning habits and abilities, so it's supposedly useful and very anonymous--because we want it to be. However, we could make very NOT anonymous if we wanted to. And we'd make boatloads more money. Additionally, we'll be developing research analyses of the data _IN house_ so it'll be our social research that we've compiled and sold, not the raw data which can be cross tabbed with still other databases of info.
You know how easy it is to run cross tabs on data at the BLS, compared to what you did a decade ago. Imagine how web and computing technologies have made database integration and the generation of profiles on you a simple click of a mouse--coz it is.
Amazon used to tell you they wouldn't sell information about your book buying habits either, then they started to do it. They also used to use cookies in order to customize the book price. If you're a regular book buyer and don't need a lot of incentives, not to mention from a desirable income group (based on cross tabbing with other databases) the book price you pay is higher than the one I might pay.
Dot bombs have been selling all their databases--databases they once promised paying clients they'd keep to themselves. Once they bombed and realized they could get good money for them, they started selling information people had provided assuming that it was confidential.