A company called [x+1] Inc. is making strides towards the destruction of anonymity on the Web.

• [x+1] Inc. collects data from users and sells it to companies that use the information that then targets products to specific customers.
• According to a survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal, [x+1] Inc.’s data is not always completely accurate, but it was able to find out quite a bit of information about the test users, including where they lived.
• Although this is a troubling infringement of privacy on its own, there is an added threat: the more bits of information a program or company gathers on you, the easier it becomes to narrow you down to a specific person, destroying your anonymity entirely.

Facts & Figures

• Clients pay from $30,000-$200,000 per month for [x+1] Inc.’s services.
• According to [x+1] Inc., the company is capable of absorbing thousands of details about a user in just a fifth of a second.
• 33 “bits” of information are required to accurately determine a person’s identity, where each piece of information is assigned a value in “bits” (your gender is worth just one bit, your ZIP code or birthdate many more). [x+1] Inc.’s analysis of one of the WSJ’s test users yielded 26.5 bits, or enough to narrow his identity down to one of 64 people in the entire world.

Best Quote

“We never don’t know anything about someone.” –John Nardone, chief executive, [x+1] Inc.