Just to be clear, the HHS RFID article was an April Fool's day joke. I certainly hope this one is as well! --Declan -----Begin forwarded message ----- Google plans to buy data mining firm Published: April 1 2004 12:33 | Last Updated: April 1 2004 12:33 Google is in negotiations to purchase Acxiom Corporation, the massive data warehousing company that has been embroiled in numerous privacy scandals over the last few years. Sources close to the talks said Thursday that the search engine company hoped to use Acxiom's databases, which feature information on nearly every American family, to optimize search results, share more information with law enforcement, and target advertisements with greater accuracy. Acxiom's expertise is intended to allow Google to make money from its new Gmail concept, which gives every user a gigabyte of free email space. "This is a great way to leverage Acxiom's industry-leading collections of personal information on Americans and deliver more value to all of Google's customers and advertisers," a Google executive participating in the talks said. While no details are final, one source said the purchase could be around $1.8 billion, an affordable sticker price for a company valued at over $15 billion in an expected initial public offering. Acxiom, based in Little Rock, Ark., sells police and corporate customers products including InfoBase, touted as the "largest collection of U.S. consumer" data, and Personicx, which tracks the "specific consumer behavior" of almost every American and can sort households into one of 70 distinctive segments. Acxiom and JetBlue were involved in a scandal last year after providing personal information on Americans to the Transportation Security Administration, and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that Acxiom would have been a primary source for the Defense Department's short-lived Total Information Awareness project. To offset the cost of providing up to 1 GB of email storage, Google plans to employ real-time customer data integration (CDI) to target offers based on the link between email content and information about each family in Acxiom's vast databases. "This is a truly innovative, unique solution that provides consumers with real value," said a source close to Acxiom Company Leader Charles Morgan. "Because we know their drugstore shopping habits, CDI can show them ads for condom, birth control pills, or day-after pills, whichever is most appropriate." Google spokesman Nate Tyler declined to comment on the proposed acquisition. Lisa Dean, chief privacy officer for the Transportation Security Administration, applauded the proposed deal, noting that the CDI system would be designed to detect terrorist conversations in Gmail and forward the relevant email correspondence to law enforcement. Because Google sets what's known as a "cookie" that records all searches ever done on a specific computer, it has accumulated a wealth of data about hundreds of millions of Internet users. By linking that CDI data with Acxiom's information about family income, shopping habits, and bank account balances, Google expects itself to be in the enviable, and profitable, position of being the largest personal information repository on the planet. Acxiom's shares increased 2.8 percent Thursday to $22.58 on word of the pending deal. In anticipation of the purchase, Acxiom on Wednesday cut 230 jobs and upped its earnings estimate for the fourth quarter ending March 31. Company sites: http://gmail.google.com/ http://www.acxiom.com/ ----- End forwarded message ----- _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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