How A Private Data Market Could Ruin Facebook

How A Private Data Market Could Ruin Facebook

The growing interest in a market for personal data that shares profits with the individuals who own the data could change the business landscape for companies like Facebook
To justify its sky-high valuation, Facebook will have to increase its profit per user at rates that seem unlikely, even by the most generous predictions. Last year, we looked at just how unlikely this is.

Is There Big Money in Big Data?

Many entrepreneurs foresee vast profits in mining data from online activity and mobile devices. One Wharton business school professor strongly disagrees.
Few ideas hold more sway among entrepreneurs and investors these days than "Big Data." The idea is that we are now collecting so much information about people from their online behavior and, especially, through their mobile phones that we can make increasingly specific predictions about how they will behave and what they will buy.