Who are you? Who are you? Direct marketing companies have many othe ways of appropriating data bodies. Allowing form regional and national variations, data are obtained from registration cards, telephone directories, social insurance data bass, religious groups, educational institutions, trade unions, registry offices, banks and of course from the date trace left behind in digital environments, e.g. by clicking on an advertising banner. Direct marketing companies collect als this data systemtically and enhance them, i.e. they associate a range of different indicators with a person's name. Techniques used range from simple inferences ("if you are German and your name is Claudia, you are 80 % likely to be between 25 and 33 years old") to complicated data mining programmes such as Knowledge Seeker, Enterprise Miner, or Scenario. Indicators include postal address sex size of household age group purchasing power neighbourhood quality size of town region professional and academic titles phone and fax numbers e-mail address pronness for mail-order purchasing number of children age of children marital status purchasing patterns investment behaviour credit status credit history convictions nature of products and services purchased many other social and economic indicators There can be a hundred or more indicators associated to an individual's name. Direct marketing companies such as Abacus direct and Schober maintain databases that include almost everybody with a social existence. In fact, dirct marketing in increasingly becoming the modern individual's constant companion, starting from birth: in many places, new-born babies receive gift boxes with baby food, toys and other baby products - in return for their personal data.

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1996 Welfare Reform (U.S.) The United States entered a new era in social policy in 1996 by enacting historic legislation that changed the philosophy as well as the structure of protection for the needy. After 61 years under a welfare system in which the federal government had guaranteed cash assistance to the poor for an indefinite period, welfare policy was revised to put new emphasis and reliance on the states while stressing individual self-sufficiency and the initiation or resumption of work among beneficiaries. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, the official name of welfare reform, was passed by Congress in August 1996.

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