NebuAd Observes ‘Useful, but Innocuous’ Web Browsing

Saul Hansell authored this Bits Blog on the New York Times website on April 7, 2008.

Here's an excerpt:

"Of all the companies building advertising systems based on data gathered from Internet service providers, the one that is farthest along in the United States is NebuAd.

Robert Dykes, a long time Silicon Valley executive who started the company two years ago, says it has been up and running since last fall and will soon be monitoring the activities of 10 percent of Internet users in the country, mainly customers of small and medium Internet service providers." (emphasis added)

For the complete article, navigate to NebuAd Observes ‘Useful, but Innocuous’ Web Browsing.

Can an Eavesdropper Protect Your Privacy?

Saul Hansell authored a Bits Blog on the New York Times website on April 3, 2008.

Here's an excerpt:

"I wrote last month about a new crop of companies that is likely to spawn what I called 'the mother of all privacy battles.' These companies put devices inside the data centers of Internet service providers to gather information about every Web site the I.S.P.’s users visit. Their goal is to use this data to display advertising related to what people might want to buy.

That post prompted calls from two of those companies, Phorm and NebuAd, with invitations to learn more about their systems. [....] Their messages were the same: these systems are actually designed to protect the privacy of Internet users more than most of the methods used for targeting advertising today. [...] Meanwhile the Federal Trade Commission has proposed guidelines for behavioral targeting of online advertising. Comments are due April 11."

 For the compelete article see Can an Eavesdropper Protect Your Privacy?

Newt Gingrich's Interview at HIMSS Annual Meeting

Newt Gingrich needs no introduction. He’s a former Speaker of the House of Representatives. He is founder of the Center for Health Transformation. He is a strong proponent of healthcare IT.

Anthony Guerra, the Editor-in-Chief of Healthcare Informatics, interviewed Gingrich at this year’s Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual meeting in Orlando, Florida held February 24-28.

Here’s an interesting excerpt:

Guerra: Many health information exchange initiatives are thwarted by privacy concerns. How do you think that can be addressed?

Gingrich: First of all, I favor strongly a federal law that would make it a felony to release or use personal health information without the consent of the person involved. And I would make it an automatic matter of slander for any news organization to use your health record without your permission. [...]

The last point I make is one where I think the hardest line privacy advocates actually get caught in a formula that in the long run doesn’t make much sense. It is clear that we’re going to have some method of knowing who you are. Because we present in an emergency room or you present to get a drug, if we don’t know who you are, how can we have safety in terms of medication, how can we have safety in terms of treatments. It turns out to be irrelevant, whether it’s a single identifier or five items that identify you. All the big credit card companies who allow you to use a piece of plastic worldwide have multiple methods of determining who you really are. If you said to the average person, in order to protect your privacy, we’re going to take away your credit card, they would think you were crazy. There are some people — but to be fair in a free country, there are a significant number of people who won’t shop on the Internet, who won’t use a credit card — there is a minority that actually have no bank accounts deliberately as an act of policy. It’s a pretty small minority, but it’s several million people who are deliberately living in a cash society. (underlining added for emphasis)

To read both Part I and Part II of the interview, go to One-on-One with Newt Gingrich.

Mostly Invented Somewhere Else

G. Pascal Zachary authored an article in the New York Times on March 30, 2008 entitled Thinking Outside the Company's Box.

“One of the oldest barriers to innovation is ‘Not Invented Here,’ a persistent bias of even the most creative people toward their own creations and against those of people who work for other companies. […] To help counteract N.I.H., large corporations have promoted technology alliances with rivals, as well as the concept of ‘open innovation,’ to draw on a wider circle of big brains — not on their payroll — to work on core technical problems. These efforts arise from the recognition that no single innovator or team, no matter how loyal to an employer or successful in the market, has a monopoly on wisdom.”

This is an interesting article that revolves around the steps and processes that Cisco Systems, obviously one of the big boys, is internally exercising in an attempt to overcome the NIH syndrome.

Compare Zachary's article with a presentation made by Peter N. Detkin, Founder and Vice-Chairman of Intellectual Ventures, on March 7, 2008 to the Washington State Bar Association. The presentation is entitled Investing in Invention. Here's his premise, and it's a good one:

 “Corporations are not a major source of invention …. Academics are not a major source of invention …. Startups are a source of invention …. Individuals are a .... huge source of invention.”

Detkin is a former vice president and assistant general counsel to another one of the big boys, Intel Corporation. I have no relationship with either Detkin or Intellectual Ventures. But that Detkin is an attorney, and that he talks about how to level the playing field for the little guy, probably has something to do with why I like his presentation. In it he succinctly begins his presentation by describing the significant inefficiences in the marketplace for the monetization of patents by start-ups and individuals. Then he finishes by providing hope that new business models are bringing efficiencies to the IP marketplace.

For those of you who may be interested in a more scholarly approach, also take a look at Detkin's law review article entitled, Leveling the Patent Playing Field, published by The John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law.

So allow me to coin a phrase I'll call the "Mostly Invented Somewhere Else" cure. Think of the MISE cure not as one single process or business model for bringing efficiencies to the IP marketplace. Think of it as an attitude. Isn't this what Cisco is trying to do? Introduce a MISE-type attitude cure for the NIH syndrome? Isn't that what Detkin is trying to do, too?

Yes, and kudos to both Cisco Systems and Detkin.

Who Owns My Healthcare Data?

In late 2006 Shahid Shah invited me to submit a guest article to his blog, The Healthcare IT Guy blog.

I was pleased to accept his invitation and here's the introduction made by Shahid:

"Healthcare data ownership is an important issue and I was pleased to run across Pardalis, a company specializing it. Although they don’t focus only on healthcare, they intrigued me because they appear to be a cross between a nascent supply chain Google, eBay, and author-controlled Wikipedia. That is, they claim to be able to increase availability of on-demand healthcare information (which lots of companies are doing) but they provide real-time control over the process of sharing such information to patients and healthcare information producers (which very few allow today). It’s unique enough that they’ve recently been awarded a couple of patents. Pardalis is company worth keeping an eye on because if they can achieve even part of what they plan it could lead to a practical realization of software as a service that might give more than just lip service to privacy and be able to address the economic realities of ‘data ownership’. I invited Pardalis’ founder and CEO, Steve Holcombe, to discuss why he believes healthcare informatics seems be trapped within a technological Tower of Babel."

 And here's the link to my guest article entitled Who Owns My Healthcare Data?