Several months ago, I wrote a piece asking whether the Internet is making us stupid. Just yesterday, I received a comment on it from Kevin, who said the Internet is making us more comfortable and less creative.

Coincidentally, this morning I happened to read a piece by Suzanne Seggerman at the Huffington Post on the power of video games to effect change in society. She mentions that only a small fraction of games are violent, but adds an interesting point:

Games have been demonized in part because they are simply a young medium growing up. Note Voltaire: “The multitude of books is making us ignorant.”

This exchange got me to thinking how often we dismiss something because it’s different to what we know. We seem to have a sort of societal disdain for not getting our hands dirty. That Voltaire quote, for example, demonstrates the reaction when people started reading books instead of going out and doing the research themselves.

Of course, we all know that books open up a world of knowledge that would be impossible to achieve directly. There’s no way we could learn first hand all of the stuff that experts condense for our easy digestion. And that easy digestion allows for something else: it allows us to leapfrog off of all the work that’s already been done.

“If I have seen further, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Without shortcuts, our society would look nothing like it does. We wouldn’t have computer programs if we didn’t build on algorithms. We wouldn’t have skyscrapers if we didn’t build on three-story houses. We wouldn’t have airplanes if we didn’t build on bicycles.

When people were inventing airplanes, nobody said, “Gee, you guys are lazy. You’re just taking all that work other people did to invent bicycles and re-using it!” But people do say those things about email, the Internet, and texting. Once upon a time, evidently, they even said those things about books.

Here’s the thing: laziness is an evolutionary imperative. We humans are always looking for quicker, more effortless ways to do everything, and that’s what has made us who we are today. That’s what allows for specialization, segmentation, and Google search.

Right now, it may seem as if our growing reliance on Google and the wider Web is making us lazy and less inclined to think for ourselves. But we’ve always been lazy and disinclined to think for ourselves. This is nothing new. We are always looking for others to do the work for us.

The good news is that we have a competing imperative to do work ourselves.

So while we’re grateful when problems are solved on our behalf, we immediately ask what new problems have just become available to us.

This is why, even though we have all these ‘time-saving’ appliances, like vacuum cleaners, breadmakers, and dishwashers, we still don’t have any free time. All we’ve done is shift our focus from solving old problems to solving new ones.

Granted, this laziness isn’t always wonderful. It’s led to fast food and instant gratification, for example. But it is who we are: for better or for worse.

Are you lazy? And, if so, do you think that’s a good thing?

Would you do it?

Or let’s start with an easier question: would you let your cell company send ads to your phone in exchange for a discount on your bill? If you said yes, you’re in good company: so did 61% of the 810 people surveyed in a recent study by Transverse and iGR.

That number sounds good, but MediaPost’s Steve Smith dug deeper, and found consumers are pretty savvy about valuing their attention and pretty particular about what they’re willing to give up in exchange for the financial benefit.

For example, that 61% gets whittled down quickly when people have to provide usage information in exchange for the discount. Nearly 50% of those surveyed said no way, while only 13% said no problem. For everyone else, it was a question of, “How much are you going to pay me?”

Consumers felt they could be more demanding the more intimate the information became — some data comes cheaper than others. More than 74% said they wouldn’t mind sharing the number of texts they sent or received, but only 22% would be willing to expose the content of their downloads. (Frankly, I thought that last number would be even lower.)

The ramifications of this study go far beyond the specific numbers; they speak to the conceptual shift that we as a society have undergone in the past decade or so. In an attention economy, our time and data are real assets with tangible value. That value is being continually negotiated on the open market, and it’s up to every individual to determine what it’s worth.

So how much would you sell your text quantities for? How about your clickstream or download content?

Note: This piece was published on this blog last week, but disappeared during migration to a new server! So bear with me if you’ve already read it.

One month ago, I predicted that the currently-accepted-as-standard behavioral targeting model doesn?t stand a chance. Simon Levine was kind enough to point out that ISP-based targeting isn?t standard ? it?s a new, wrong model, so let?s re-posit it: ISP-based behavioral targeting doesn?t stand a chance.

That was after NebuAd had pretty much ceased all activity, when Phorm was still doing okay. Here?s what?s happened since then:

Last week, 15 people filed suit against NebuAd for privacy violations.

?The collection of data by the NebuAd device was wholesale and all-encompassing,? the lawsuit alleges. ?Like a vacuum cleaner, everything passing through the pipe of the consumer?s internet connection was sucked up, copied, and forwarded to the California processing center. Regardless of any representations to the contrary?all data?whether sensitive, financial, personal, private, complete with all identifying information, and all personally identifying information, was recorded and transmitted to the California NebuAd facility.?

?Consumer advocates also were alarmed by the sheer scope of information available to NebuAd. Unlike older behavioral targeting companies that only collected data from a network of publishers, Internet service providers have access to everything?including activity at search engines and at non-commercial sites, such as sites operated by religious groups.

?The plaintiffs, who are seeking class-action status, allege that NebuAd violated a federal wiretap law, California privacy law and computer fraud law, among others.

Wendy Davis reported further on the story:

?It could be a landmark case,? said attorney Bennet Kelley, founder of the Internet Law Center in Santa Monica, Calif. and former privacy director at ValueClick. He added that a victory for the plaintiffs could mean that broadband providers will be left with no choice but to seek users? affirmative consent before selling information about people?s Web activity to ad companies.

?privacy advocates say that the case doesn?t invite courts to make new standards as much as to clarify that existing laws already prevent Internet service providers from selling users? clickstream data without their consent.

?There?s a very high likelihood that some of these new advertising proposals that take advantage of Web traffic are illegal,? said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Across the pond, Virgin Media publicly dismissed the idea of working with Phorm, even though they were one of three ISPs slated to use the platform. Orange, the ISP, also rejected any collaboration.

?perhaps the ISPs are realizing that the proposition might be a public relations disaster should angry subscribers voice complaints.

With so many rats making their way off the ISP-based BT ship, who would be foolish enough to go in the other direction?

What do you think the companies, courts and governments should do? Should they put a stop to ISP-based BT now?

Holy moley. From the Daily Online Examiner:

In a comically inept move, U.K. Internet service provider BT Group has decided to delete posts on its forums about its deployment of Phorm?s controversial behavioral targeting platform.

The ISP removed all current and prior comments, which dated back to at least February. One of the prior threads in the BT Beta forums went on for more than 200 pages, according to The Register.

A moderator for BT Group posted this explanation online: ?Our broadband support forums are designed to be a place where customers can discuss technical support issues and offer solutions. To ensure that the forums remain constructive we?re tightening up our moderation policies and will be deleting threads that don?t provide constructive support.?

Now, knowing what you know about user-generated content and Web 2.0 and the blogosphere, what do you think the likely reaction to this little ’sweep-it-under-the-rug’ tactic will be?

If you answered, “Well, Kaila, I think it will only draw more attention to the issue,” you’re right. After all, you’re reading this blog post, aren’t you? And I read the Daily Online Examiner one, and who knows what other posts are being written as we speak.

If you answered, “Well, Kaila, I think it will serve as evidence that BT thinks they did something wrong,” you’re right again. After all, why would you hide the complaints if you had a legitimate answer for them that you wanted people to know?

If you answered, “Well, Kaila, I think this is another nail in the coffin for ISP-based behavioral targeting,” I’d be hard-pressed to disagree. Certainly any model that knows everywhere you’ve been doesn’t pass the privacy threshold.

Beyond the behavioral targeting issue, though, lies another lesson. Have you heard that quote, “Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes”? It’s good advice, but we all get to choose whether to follow it or not.

What’s happening online, though, is that ease of communication is forcing everyone to live by that motto, all the time. If you’ve got a problem that’s playing itself out online, the only way to deal with it is directly — even if your voice shakes.

I think this is a great turn of events for our planet. We say that integrity is how you behave when you don’t think anybody’s looking, and that’s fine, but sometimes we need somebody to be looking to figure out the right thing to do. And, thanks to the Internet, somebody’s always looking.

BT, like any infant, seems to think that we can’t see it if it can’t see us. So it deletes the comments and covers its eyes, while all over the world people are saying, “Wow! Look at BT with its hands over its eyes! How silly.”

How do you think BT should have handled this situation?

Last week, several reputable sources including The Telegraph and The Independent reported on a government plan to capture every email and web visit in the UK.

The data would be captured in ‘black boxes’, which would be installed upstream from ISPs and paid for by the government, thereby removing a major obstacle to implementation.

Nonetheless, the plan, which has been given the adorable name of IMP (Interception Modernisation Programme), does have to go out for consultation, and early indications are that it will be met with significant resistance.

The Telegraph reports that ‘Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, has described [the black box plan] as a “step too far”.’ The Independent adds that ‘the Government’s own terrorism watchdog said that as a “raw idea” it was “awful”.’

The government, however, says they only want to go back to the same amount of monitoring they could do before the Internet existed, and that they need the data to support anti-terrorism efforts.

At first blush, this idea sounds absolutely horrible. The government appears to be distinguishing between ‘content’ and ‘traffic’, but it isn’t clear what the difference is. There’s no mention in any of the articles I read about warrants and due process. Even the United States’ warantless wiretapping program isn’t this broad; back in 2005, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said that the surveillance could only be undertaken when there’s “a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda.” and that one party to the conversation is “outside of the United States”.

So here I go again, with what’s beginning to seem like a repetitive chant: the ever-increasing nature of our connectivity requires ever-increasing sensitivity to privacy and civil rights issues.

I don’t claim to be any sort of expert on government intelligence, terrorism monitoring, or international law. What I do know is that a civilized and humane society is engaged in a continuous balancing act between the security of its people and the freedoms of its people.

So I applaud the consultation process, and I am heartened by imagining that it will be authentic and fair. And I hope that the people who respond do so thoughtfully. And I hope that the UK government bears in mind that its duty is not to protect its people at the expense of its people.

Do you think I’m overreacting? That this plan is no worse than anything that’s been done a million times before? Or do you think that privacy should be maintained unless there’s a demonstrated need to see a specific communication? I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

In the past two posts, we’ve explored some of the benefits of customer segmentation. In this post, I’m going to look at some of the pitfalls, specifically what happens when you use the wrong criteria for segmentation.

Fortunately, the recent U.S. election offers some insights into how people react when they feel they’re being unfairly targeted. Because a victory for either party would have resulted in a first, the issue of segmentation came up pretty regularly. Would blacks vote for Obama because he’s black? Would women vote for McCain because of Sarah Palin’s gender?

We can never know what is in someone’s heart of hearts, and what truly drove them when they went into the polling booth. But if media coverage, op-ed pages, blog posts and general commentary are any guide, the answer to both of the above questions is a resounding, ‘No!’

Back in August, Gail Collins of the New York Times had this to say:

The idea that women are going to race off to vote for any candidate with the same internal plumbing is both offensive and historically wrong. When the sexes have parted company in modern elections, it?s generally been because women are more likely to be Democrats, and more concerned about protecting the social safety net. ?The gender gap traditionally has been determined by party preference, not by the gender of the candidate,? said Ruth Mandel of the Eagleton Institute of Politics.

As for Obama, despite an obvious and rightful outpouring of national pride at overcoming one of our oldest racial hurdles, Time Magazine calmly pointed out that segmentation itself couldn’t have won the election for him:

…most blacks have not been blinded by race. Though proud of his blackness, those who did vote for him were far more thoughtful in making the decision and based their vote on promises that he now must keep. To think that this election was a shoo-in for him among blacks because of our affinity for our own people is disingenuous at best and at worst insults our intelligence. And it ignores the fact that many other blacks have run for President and walked away without winning a primary, much less the presidency. Neither Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Alan Keyes nor any other black candidate amassed black support the way Obama did.

Both of these attitudes are the ideal: we want people to vote for or hire or marry the person who is best suited to the job, not the person with the right gender or skin tone or career prospects.

What this means in terms of segmentation is that, in order to get it right, it’s critical to use the right criteria — and just as critical to avoid the wrong criteria. In this election, it wouldn’t have been wise to make predictions based on gender or race.

Imagine a health insurance company that segmented customers based on whether they enjoyed reading John Grisham novels. The segments would be unlikely to behave as predicted. Other companies with more accurate segmentation strategies would garner more low-risk customers, and the John Grisham Insurance company would go into the death spiral I discussed earlier in the week.

Here’s the bottom line: segmentation is great, but you’d better have your segments right.

I welcome your thoughts.