IP addresses and personal information (was Re: [LINK] Fwd: On Line Opinion - 16 February 2007)

[Marghanita da Cruz]

Howard Lowndes wrote:
> 
> 
> Irene Graham wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, 24 Feb 2007 11:15:07 +1100, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
>>
>>> Howard Lowndes wrote:
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>>> b)how they derive gender and lifestyle attributes (but maybe this
>>>>> is on the basis of the sites visited as a class and that it doesn't
>>>>> matter whether the person is really a girl)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What you're implying here, and I agree with you, is that the
>>>> demographics that they supply to their clients aren't worth a brass
>>>> razoo in terms of their accuracy.
>>>>
>>> not exactly. I am suggesting the labels are creative and used to
>>> classify people which is a widespread practice.
>>>
>>> Seniors, Young People, Wage Earners, Aspirational, Professional by
>>> trying to classify their interests/behaviour/expenditure pattern. 
>>
>>
>> What I do not understand is how can they classify web site visitors 
>> into those or any other categories -if- they are only collecting 
>> completely anonymised information from ISPs?
> 
> 
> I agree.  I think it's just hopeful marketing puff.
> 
> 
How would they do it if they did have an IP address - do ISPs profile
their customers in this way?

What I am suggesting is a general statistical analysis.

  As a weblog miner from way back, I only have access to my own sites
stats and I have also done some mining for clients of their weblogs.

It seems Hitwise is value adding by aggregating the data. Perhaps as a
website owner, I would be curious whether my ISP is handing over my
webstats as this information is of commercial value and they haven't
asked me. However, I suspect there are companies who would be happy to
provide their data on the basis that this would provide them info on
other sites - not to mention the fact that if no other sites in the
category agree then I will show up as number 1.

The point of the exercise is to value web advertising space - as the 
ASX, for example,
has done on their webpages.

An alternative would be to sign up with Google.

I am preparing a workshop on this but an earlier musing on the topic is at
<http://www.ramin.com.au/marg/performanceindicatorsforwebsites.html>

Marghanita
-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
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