Nick Bradbury has a post entitled AttentionTrust.org in which he talks about a new non-profit entity that has been formed by Steve Gillmor, Seth Goldstein and a few others. Nick writes
In a nutshell, the idea is that your attention data - that is, data that describes what you're paying attention to - has value, and because it has value, when you give someone your attention you should expect to be given something in return. And just because you give someone your attention, it doesn't mean that they own it. You should expect to get it back. I know that sounds a little weird - it took me a while to grok it, too. So I'll use an example that's familiar to many of us: Netflix ratings and recommendations. By telling Netflix how you rate a specific movie you're telling them what you're paying attention to, and in return they can recommend additional DVDs to you based on how other people rated the same movie. In return for giving them your attention data - which is of great value to them - they provide you features such as recommendations that they hope will be valuable to you. In my mind, this is a fair trade. But what if Netflix collected this information without your knowledge, and rather than using it to give you added value they sold it to another service instead? I imagine that many people wouldn't like that idea - chances are, you'd want to be given the opportunity to decide who this information can be shared with. This is one of the goals of AttentionTrust.org: to leave you in charge of what's done with your attention data. But what about this whole idea of mobility, as mentioned on the AttentionTrust.org site? What's the benefit of making this stuff mobile? Dave Winer provides a nice example: suppose you could share your Netflix attention data with a dating site such as Match.com, so you could find possible partners who like the same movies as you? For that sort of thing to be possible, you'd need to be able to get your attention data back from any service which collects it. (As an aside, this also means you could share your Netflix queue with any new DVD rental service that comes down the pike - so my guess is that smaller, up-and-coming sites will be more willing to share attention data than the more entrenched sites will.).
In a nutshell, the idea is that your attention data - that is, data that describes what you're paying attention to - has value, and because it has value, when you give someone your attention you should expect to be given something in return. And just because you give someone your attention, it doesn't mean that they own it. You should expect to get it back.
I know that sounds a little weird - it took me a while to grok it, too. So I'll use an example that's familiar to many of us: Netflix ratings and recommendations. By telling Netflix how you rate a specific movie you're telling them what you're paying attention to, and in return they can recommend additional DVDs to you based on how other people rated the same movie. In return for giving them your attention data - which is of great value to them - they provide you features such as recommendations that they hope will be valuable to you. In my mind, this is a fair trade.
But what if Netflix collected this information without your knowledge, and rather than using it to give you added value they sold it to another service instead? I imagine that many people wouldn't like that idea - chances are, you'd want to be given the opportunity to decide who this information can be shared with. This is one of the goals of AttentionTrust.org: to leave you in charge of what's done with your attention data.
But what about this whole idea of mobility, as mentioned on the AttentionTrust.org site? What's the benefit of making this stuff mobile? Dave Winer provides a nice example: suppose you could share your Netflix attention data with a dating site such as Match.com, so you could find possible partners who like the same movies as you? For that sort of thing to be possible, you'd need to be able to get your attention data back from any service which collects it. (As an aside, this also means you could share your Netflix queue with any new DVD rental service that comes down the pike - so my guess is that smaller, up-and-coming sites will be more willing to share attention data than the more entrenched sites will.).
The attention data is what separates the giants in the Web world like Amazon & Netflix from their competitors. It is in their best interests to collect as much data as possible about what users are interested in so they can target their users better. The fact that [for example] fans of G-Unit also like 50 Cent is data that makes Amazon a bunch of money since they can offer bundle deals and recommendations which lead to more sales. Additionally record labels and concert organizers are also interested customers in the aggregate data of where people's musical interests lie. It is arguable that this is also beneficial to customers since it makes it more likely that their favorite artists will appear in concert together (for example). Similar concepts exist in the physical world such as supermarket loyalty cards.
How much data websites can store about users can vary widely depending on what jurisdiction they are in. Working at MSN, I know first hand some of the legal and privacy hurdles we have to clear in various markets before we can collect data and how we must make users aware of the data we collect. All this is documented in the MSN Privacy policy. To better target user's we'd love to collect as much data as possible but instead adhere to strict policies informed by laws from various countries and guidelines from various privacy bureaus.
It currently isn't clear to me whether AttentionTrust.org plans to become another privacy body like TRUSTe or whether they plan to be a grassroots evangelization body like the WaSP. Either approach can be effective although they require different skill sets. I'll be interested in seeing how much impact they'll have on online retailers.
As to why I called this the "Return of Hailstorm" in the title of this blog post? It's all in the 2001 Microsoft press release entitled "Hailstorm" on the Horizon which among other things stated
"HailStorm" is designed to place individuals at the center of their computing experience and take control over the technology in their lives and better protect the privacy of their personal information. "HailStorm" services will allow unprecedented collaboration and integration between the users' devices, their software and their personal data. With "HailStorm", users will have even greater and more specific control over what people, businesses and technologies have access to their personal information.
Of course we all know how that turned out. The notion of mobile attention data basically requires Web companies like Netflix & Amazon to give up what for them is a key competitive advantage. It makes no business sense for them to want to that. I wish Steve Gillmor and company luck with their new endeavors but unless they plan to lobby lawmakers I don't see them getting much traction with some of their ideas.