Predictive Analytics

Companies Recording Personal Information



Have you ever had the feeling you were being watched? Today retail companies are trying their best to figure out shopping patterns and habits customers have. This in itself is not an issue, however it is the way companies are doing this is reason it creates controversy.

Predictive analytics is a computer process that uses a variety of methods. It uses modeling, machine learning, data mining, and game theory in order to figure out certain facts, past and present, about someone. Companies use this information for advertising benefits. Target, for example, uses a guest code linked to each person by using his or her credit card, email, mail, or other contact information. It has become so advance that companies can figure out someone's personal information, which many people are not fond of. Companies can figure out where you live, where you lived previously, your demographics, how much money you make, where you went to college, if you've ever been bankrupt, if you have been divorced, etc. This is a lot of personal information that one may not want to be shared.

The problem with the predictive analytic process is that the companies do not inform their customers that their data is being recorded. Therefore, customers have not given the companies consent to do this. Some retailers slightly address this problem with loyalty cards that a customer must sign. In fine print on the card it states that the company may record a customers information for many purposes. Another problem with this process is that the government has not set up a limit for the usage of information that a company records from its customers. Many retailers give their customer information to other companies in order to give them advertising benefits.

Many people are unaware of the predictive analytic process that companies use today because they are not told and have not given consent. This creates a big privacy issue that the government has not fully addressed. This subject and issue has not been publicly announced until two weeks ago in an issue of The New York Times. Although companies are trying to get everything they can out of their customers they need to be aware and sure of the legal issues that can follow.



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.csrandthelaw.com/2012/02/articles/privacy/predictive-analytics-informed-consent-and-privacy-the-case-of-target/

Galloping Information

In a matter of seconds we can exchange information throughout just about the whole world. Today we can communicate many different types of information quickly and efficiently. Technology allows us to do this with items as small as a 4 inch cell phones. As we are impressed with the way society has evolved in spreading information, society 150 years ago was also impressed with its form of spreading news.

The Pony Express was the fastest and easiest way for people to send information and news during the early 1960's. Beginning in 1860, the Pony Express kept the western society of the connected with the Union on the east coast. Founded by William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell, it transported bundles of mail, containing news and information, by horseback to a chain of stations that acted as a relay. Each station was approximately 10 miles apart from each other and there was a total of about 160. The route was about 1,900 miles long and ran from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California. The Pony Express went through 8 of today's states. Information took about 10 days to reach the east coast from the west coast and vice versa.

10 days to transport information was exceptionally fast for this time period. It made it easier for people to communicate with others over America. Before the Pony Express there was a very efficient system of transporting information. People would have to travel themselves to spread news unless they had major significance. Today standard mail takes about 3 or 4 days to be delivered. Society 150 years ago was not too far behind us in getting information from one region to another by standard mail. During the mid 1800's was the prime of the gold rush in California. Many people needed to exchange information from the west coast to the people they knew on the east coast. When gold was first found in California, it took a few months for people to on the east coast to be informed. The pony Express lessened the time it took to exchange information by months.

The Pony Express only lasted about a year and a half (April 1860 to October 1861). its operation was short because the civil war began in 1861 and ceased its progression. It fully closed its operation two days after the telegraph was successfully operational. The Pony Express was sold to Wells Fargo for 1.5 million dollars. If it wasn’t for the telegraph who knows how much progress this information process could have made. While we may perceive our information process today to be the highest efficiency, future society will view our generation's information process as slow and much more inferior.

http://www.stjomo.com/see-do/experience-history/the-pony-express/

http://www.nytimes.com/1861/08/12/news/news-from-california-by-the-pony-express.html

http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/resources/6a2b_ponyexpress.html