Fidelity National Information Solutions Inc., a provider of data and software to real estate and mortgage companies, agreed to buy a rival, the Factual Data Corporation, for about $84 million in stock and cash.
And despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars, the Romney television-ad-making apparatus proved to be no match for the Obama operation, which enlisted Rentrak, the data corporation for satellite and cable companies, through which it accrued an entirely new layer of information about each and every consumer, giving the campaign the ability to customize cable TV ads.
When it came to the use of consumers' personal data by corporations, Mr. Westin also steered a middle course.
The site, which is operated by a company called Fast Forward in Portland, Ore., carries no advertising; it makes money selling data to corporations and publications like Money magazine.
The site makes money by selling data to corporations and publications like Money magazine, which publish articles about places to live or retire.
And that demand, most professionals agree, will come not mainly from telecommunications concerns but from companies that manage and store data for corporations.
They say all kinds of data inside corporations and governments could be analyzed and become more understandable and useful to humans, if it were translated into narrative form.
"There are very sophisticated threats that are able to steal data from corporations and government," is all Mr. Shah would say.
FACTUAL sells data to corporations and independent software developers on a sliding scale, based on how much the information is used.
On the other hand, Professor Gillenson said, the data that corporations are collecting about people are creating what the old car dealer could never have imagined: knowledge about what people want before they even ask.
Using hackers, detectives, and Internet business schemes, you amass a cache of fictional private information, and then sell that data to corporations (like Star Mart), health-insurance companies, and the faintly disguised Central Security Agency.
