Like that car? The tricks of the data body industry 2. Like that car? The tricks of the data body industry In the New Economy, data have become a primary resource. Businesses unable to respond to the pressure of informatisation are quickly left behind. "Information is everything" has become the war-cry of the New Economy. More than ever, business companies now collect data related to their customers, their competitors, economic indicators, etc., and compile them in data warehouses. Large amounts of data acquired can be turned into a systematic collection called a data warehouse through data mining techniques. These data can be used for marketing, stock exchange transactions, risk assessment, and many other purposes. However, there are also many companies that specialise in data body economics as the main line of business. They collect huge amount of data process and enhance them (thereby increasing the value of the data) and offer them on to other companies. Direct marketing companies belong to this category. Direct marketing companies carry out targeted marketing, also called strategic marketing, aimed at individual customers or groups of customers. This process is based on a consumer profile, a collection of data containing personal information such as age, sex, marital status, employment, address, and information about consumer and payment behaviour. Based upon this profile, conclusions regarding possible future consumption are drawn and offers are made. For example, somebody who has been attracted by a car on display in an airport terminal and completes a card with name and address to participate in a draw reveals a lot of economically valuable information about him / herself. Apart from name and address, and other data that is completed on the card, this person also can be assumed to be a potential car buyer (evidently he / she wants a car) and to be relatively affluent (the poor do not normally travel by plane). The time when you complete the card also provides information: in July and August, you are more likely to be a holiday maker than in November. Possibly in small print somewhere on the ticket you complete you agree to receive more information about this and other products, and you agree also that your data are "electronically processed". The data acquired this way can normally be expected to be much more valuable than the car the is offered in the draw. Most people who completed the cards will not win in the draw, but instead end up on directs marketing data warehouses and one day receive offers of products and services which they never knew they wanted.

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Chappe's fixed optical network Claude Chappe built a fixed optical network between Paris and Lille. Covering a distance of about 240kms, it consisted of fifteen towers with semaphores. Because this communication system was destined to practical military use, the transmitted messages were encoded. The messages were kept such secretly, even those who transmit them from tower to tower did not capture their meaning, they just transmitted codes they did not understand. Depending on weather conditions, messages could be sent at a speed of 2880 kms/hr at best. Forerunners of Chappe's optical network are the Roman smoke signals network and Aeneas Tacitus' optical communication system. For more information on early communication networks see Gerard J. Holzmann and Bjoern Pehrson, The Early History of Data Networks.

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