Personal data are collected, appropriated, processed and used for commercial purposes on a global scale. In order for such a global system to operate smoothly, there a server nodes at which the data streams converge. Among the foremost of these are the data bases of credit card companies, whose operation has long depended on global networking.
On top of credit card companies such as Visa, American Express, Master Card, and others. It would be erroneous to believe that the primary purpose of business of these companies is the provision of credit, and the facilitation of credit information for sale transactions. In fact, Information means much more than just credit information. In an advertisement of 1982, American Express described itself in these terms: ""Our product is information ...Information that charges airline tickets, hotel rooms, dining out, the newest fashions ...information that grows money funds buys and sells equities ...information that pays life insurance annuities ...information that schedules entertainment on cable television and electronically guards houses ...information that changes kroners into guilders and figures tax rates in Bermuda ..."
Information has become something like the gospel of the New Economy, a doctrine of salvation - the life blood of society, as Bill Gates expresses it. But behind information there are always data that need to be generated and collected. Because of the critical importance of data to the economy, their possession amounts to power and their loss can cause tremendous damage. The data industry therefore locates its data warehouses behind fortifications that bar physical or electronic access. Such structures are somewhat like a digital reconstruction of the medieval fortress
Large amounts of data are concentrated in fortress-like structures, in data bunkers. As the
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The plastic card invasion.
The tendency of modern data-driven economies is to structure economic activity in such a way that an increasing amount of data is generated. For example, the fact that only a few years ago few people in continental Europe used a credit card, and that now almost everybody who has a bank account also has a credit card, shows that payment by credit card is preferred to anonymous cash transaction. If somebody pays by credit card, there are computers that register the transaction. They record who paid what amount where, and for what purpose. This is valuable information. It allows businesses to "better know their customers". Credit card companies today belong to the largest data repositories anywhere. However, credit card companies have tried to introduce cash cards, or "electronic purses", plastic cards which can be used in lieu of cash in shops - a type of payment, that is not really catching on. In the small town of
Credit cards may be the most common, but certainly not the only way in which an economic activity produces a data surplus. In the end, the data surplus generated by a credit card is limited to just a few indicators. The tendency of the data body industry is to collect as much data as possible from each single transaction. Therefore, a range of new plastic card applications is emerging.
Most big retailers or service industries, offer customer cards which reward customers with certain discounts or gifts when used frequently. However, the cost of these discounts is easily set off by the value consumer data that is generated each time a card is pulled through the magnetic reading device. Frequent-flyer cards are among the most common plastic data-collecting devices. Often such frequent-flyer cards are also credit cards, in which case travel and consumption data are already combined at the point of sale, creating further rationalisation of the process.
Electronic networks have created a general tendency to move to move marketing decisions to the point of sale, rather than locating them in central locations. This way, the marketing process becomes cheaper and more efficient for the company.
The ideal situation for the data body industry and for government bureaucracy would be a complete centralised storage and management of people's data, and a collection process the pass unnoticed and ensures that the data in question are always current. Many efforts in this direction have been undertaken. One of the most recent such projects is called the
The Irish town of Ennis, although striving to become "one of the technologically most advanced towns in the world" may have frustrated the expectations of the plastic card industry. Yet this is only a minute, if embarrassing, setback on the path towards global rationalisation of data collection. The economic benefits which the plastic card data collection technologies promises for retailers, E-commerce, marketing and bureaucracies all over the world have given rise to a wealth of research programmes, field tests, projects and government policies, all aimed at promoting the data body economy and adopting it as the business model of the future.
Links to plastic card trade associations:
Links to plastic card research programmes:
Links to publications:
Links to EU research programmes
Producers
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Following the 1980s a sweeping restructuring of commercial media power has happened. While some firms have grown through expansion others extended through mergers and acquisitions. Examples are
In recent years those developments have led to the rise of transnational media giants, resulting in the domination of the global media system by about ten huge conglomerates. These have interests in numerous media industries, ranging from film production, magazines, newspapers, book publishing and recorded music to TV and radio channels and networks, but also include retail stores, amusement parks and digital media products.
Behind these firms are about three or four dozen smaller media companies, which primarily engage in local, national or niche markets. In short, the overwhelming majority of the world's content production facilities and distribution channels lies in the hands of approximately fifty enterprises.
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U.S. intelligence agency within the Department of Defense that is responsible for cryptographic and communications intelligence and security. The NSA grew out of the communications intelligence activities of U.S. military units during World War II. The NSA was established in 1952 by a presidential directive and, not being a creation of the Congress, is relatively immune to Congressional review; it is the most secret of all U.S. intelligence agencies. The agency's mission includes the protection and formulation of codes, ciphers, and other cryptology for the U.S. military and other government agencies, as well as the interception, analysis, and solution of coded transmissions by electronic or other means. The agency conducts research into all forms of electronic transmission. It operates posts for the interception of signals around the world. Being a target of the highest priority for penetration by hostile intelligence services, the NSA maintains no contact with the public or the press.
Headquarters of the US National Security Agency in Maryland.
This is the tile of a book by the