Identification sourcing as a business model
I was reminded of the strange company Acxiom today. Obviously they now offer identification sourcing services, enabling security solutions and identity management. A truly interesting company with a perspective on privacy that borders on the surreal:
At Acxiom, we create and deliver customer and information management solutions that enable many of the largest, most respected companies in the world to build great relationships with their customers. Acxiom achieves this by blending data, technology and services to provide the most advanced customer information infrastructure available in the marketplace today.
They have recently started a subsidiary in the EU. Should be challenging, considering the data protection directive. And they seem to have been able to stay away from the news, other than in a few small magazines. They are now being taken over, or there is at least an attempt to take the company over from the founder - and to turn into into an even more efficient business model for selling personal data.
I realize that it is easy to condemn companies like this, but I think that the key question has to be why they arise. My prototheory is that they eliminate transaction costs in acquiring, maintaining and managing customer relationships. If this is the case, we must ask if the cost reductions that they create are worth it. And what checks and balances we can put in place to ensure that.
There is a new bill in the US now that is intended to give customers the right - analogous with the EU-rules - to access what information Acxiom and other similiar companies have that relates to the customer in question. That is a first step. But is it enough?