Web 2.0 and Privacy

This article from bit-tech argues that the business model for web2.0 sites will be mining/selling personal data. It’s an interesting claim that sounds possible, but I don’t see why a lot of that info can’t be mined right now by outside companies. Perhaps the algorithms to make sense of this info just don’t exist yet. I suppose the site itself would have a big edge in terms of speed, knowing site traffic and more personal details like email addresses or ‘private’ postings, but email would almost certainly fail as a delivery system for these ads. I could see the sites selling very detailed aggregate information perhaps to advertising companies so they can better target their products. Perhaps something a lot more targeted than current Google ads is possible. I think the danger in the loss of privacy is not loosing it to advertisers (we’d just build up an even higher threshold for ads to get our attention) but to insurance companies, lenders (although they already have an enviable data set), other individuals, or one’s government.