Features

The past KDnuggets Poll asked: Should consumer on-line buying and browsing patterns be opt-in or opt-out?

Based on 128 votes, the majority of about 60% prefers opt-in. Because the opt-in rate is typically very low, this will effectively render data mining on this data of little use. One possible solution is privacy-preserving data mining (see newsbrief in this issue).

Note that a privacy bill recently proposed by Senator Hollings (see KDnuggets News of May 7, 2002) would classify information into "sensitive" (e.g. medical data), that requires explicit user permission to mine, and non-sensitive that companies can mine unless user opts-out. Online buying patterns are classified as "non-sensitive", or opt-out.

See poll results at
www.kdnuggets.com/polls/2002/opt-in_vs_opt-out.htm