Are you Influential - Check your Google Number - another thought...

http://georgerapalje.blogspot.com/2008/09/are-you-influential-check-your-google.html

George brings up an interesting point about the Google Number - although I don't have the same concerns about privacy that he does. I think that it is a given that there is little to no privacy on the internet - you can clear your search history, but companies can still track your web usage, and through tracking cookies websites can identify who has visited or passed through. I think the Google number is an interesting way of identifying connectors and mavens - to steel terminology from "The Tipping Point" - people who bring others together and disseminate information about the market. Through targeted marketing advertisers would be able to more efficiently focus their efforts on people with large spheres of influence. It would be interesting to see how these targeted approached play out in a controlled environment such as Facebook - where it is easy to track linkages among friends and peer groups. Could this viral marketing be the future of on-line advertising?

On another note, I see how this could apply to Facebook, where you essentially sign an agreement when logging into the site, but I do wonder about the legality of it outside of the highly trafficked social networking sites. Does google own your internet "cookies" if you use their browser? their search engine? Where do they draw the line - and how do they establish rules about what kind of data to share - and with whom???