Visa and Mastercard have announced they will open a new line of business: the sale of consumer awareness and offers targetizadas advertising on the Internet. The news (which has just been confirmed) appeared in WSJ :
"BY EMILY STEEL
The two largest credit-card networks, Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., are pushing Into a new business: using what They Know about people's credit-card Purchases for Them with ads targeting online.
Their plans, if Implemented, would not only to Technological representa-tying feat Internet people's lives with shopping activities-But Also an erosion of the concept of anonymity on the Web. It's an effort by the two companies to profit by selling access to the insights They gather about people With Every credit-card transaction.
The technology is still Evolving. According To Some ad executives briefed on of the ideas, holy grail would ... "
I think this fact will come to do or not, open the Pandora's box in some key areas for development of information industry. To say that the practice of selling segment information is nothing new, for example, Carrefour collects information on sales of brands and categories which it offers to manufacturers, who see not only their evolution but of competition, and possibly the English Court is taking its first steps in this business through VECI. Which is an important twist is that they are Visa and MasterCard transactions that accumulate 45,000,000,000 annual purchases, those who see this as a hyper-profitable business substantially. The micro analysis of a consumer spending is one of the best films that can be done on a personal level. Directly "see" who is behind a credit card, which products to buy, what your lifestyle ... etc. These data are worth more than the Treasury has.
I think it's the clearest example of such terms as "the value of information" or "information as an asset of the enterprise." Few companies are in this situation make tangible asset so obvious, but I think many will begin to look at the mine that may have accumulated.
On the other hand is a major challenge from the standpoint of legal and ethical, because it commits the sacred privacy of our data, or perhaps open a debate on how far taboo we must approach the concept of "privacy" in the coming years.
I am convinced that will run rivers of ink on this subject, but this is just the beginning, several companies that all come to mind can see an example to follow ...
