Author, Stephen Saunders, in an article published in Information Week talks about the future of "search inversion," and I would like to share some of his predictions with everyone.
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As today’s Internet search function morphs from being a useful tool for users to search the Internet for products to an essential tool for companies to search the Internet for customers, we see a phenomenon called "search inversion" take place.

informationweek.com

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Every time use search engines or create a user profile at a social networking site your activity is being recorded. Even your visit to Street Prophets is monitored. I use Firefox & NoScript to do my surfing on the net. NoScript reports Street Prophets is being watched by: google analyics, doubleclick, quantserve, blogads, and i2.ytimg. The list varies but you get the idea.

Over at Orange the list has upwards of 17 of these "scrips" or spy programs running. When you visit Google or Bling to search, visit Facebook or YouTube for entertainment, and Amazon or eBay to buy something, "scrips" are tracking you and recording what you clicked on.
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Users and their user profiles become proprietary assets owned by the companies that developed the user profile, or commodities to be bought and sold on "profile markets" or "identity exchanges" – the digital DNA equivalents of the financial and commodities exchanges on which stocks, oil, and gold are traded.

informationweek.com

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Stephen Saunders predicts in 20 years the internet profiling industry will mature and the monetary value of the profiles will exceed the value of digital information stored on the web. And, that there will be more observance devices, such as video cameras, than people on the net.
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Adding a trillion-plus sensors to the Internet eliminates the traditional divide between online and offline populations (the latter being those who, in the current sense of the word, would not consider themselves users of the Internet at all). In the new sensor-enabled, CCTV-monitored, digitally scoped Internet, a person who does not even own a computer (let alone update his or her Facebook status, send emails, Tweet, or blog) will be just as visible as the most digitally connected member of the Web 2.0 society. There is no online. There is no offline. There is only inline.

informationweek.com

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The maturation, that Saunders suggests, in his article is the perfection of watching you on any device, anywhere, any time. And, using the combined data. Currently your profiles are distributed over a number of systems. He is predicting the consolation of all the data about you into "super profiles." And because these profiles predict what you will buy they are valuable.

For example, imagine in this future, combining my Safeway Club card data with my search information when I visit AOL Television TV Listings to look up what I'm watching Friday Night. Add in my Car GPS data on Friday night, and that I'm receiving services over Comcast. Imagine using the "super profile" collected from these, currently disconnected, systems to predict what I like to buy. Comcast, uses the "super profile" to sell advertising to the local pizza with delivery company knowing that we always need more pizza that was bought. Have you noticed how the ads served up the internet are getting more personal and directed? This is search inversion.

Imagine walking down the street and having all the LED street level  billboards start selling you preparation H. That would be combining your cell phone position with your frequent searches on that topic and your predicted path of walking to the drug store and making a credit purchase through Authorize.net to buy the ointment.

Imagine every advertisement on cable, internet, smart phone, billboard, hold music, license plate, or whatever new device they dream up being specificity targeted to you biased on your "super profile." Your weaknesses, your loves, your dalliances, your addictions served up to tempt you to buy and consume.

I would like to encourage Street Prophet members to read Saunders full article because it spells out the commercial driven future that will stand against building a society based on Empathy.