Adventure of Strategy

I suppose that it had to happen sooner or later, what with the increasing convergence of diverse data sources. If I understand things correctly, this company, netfactor, offers to install software on your system that will track the IP addresses of computers that visit your web site, cross reference those IP addresses with databases recording computer ownership to determine who owns the computers and then cross reference that data further to provide addresses, telephone numbers, etc. You then get a spreadsheet detailing everybody who has visited your web site, without their having identified themselves (consciously at least.)

If this is real, then a whole new generation of spam may be about to emerge, with an approach that starts: "We notice that you visited our web site yesterday ..."

Could be great for marketing and competitive intelligence, though, if it is not abused.

Hat-tip to MBA Depot.

Rob - thanks for taking a momnent to comment on our product for website visitor tracking - VisitorTrack. To your point, it is indeed a very powerful tool for Competitive intelligence. I thought I'd add a few other bullets in the event there is opportunity for additional clarity on what VisitorTrack delivers?
> VisitorTrack is like "Caller ID for a website"
> No personal information is ever captured
> Only information about businesses is presented
> Today, conversion rates on the clicks businesses buy from search engines (like Google) average 2%, 1% or less. Our clients want more from their Internet marketing investement...
> VisitorTrack is aimed at clients with expensive products ($10,000 or more). long sales cycles, and no ability to conduct e-commerce type sales transactions from their websites - it offers them an opportunity to reach out to potential buyers and - in effect - say "may I help you?"

Thanks again -
M. Christopher Jeffers
CEO
netFactor Corporation

Thanks, Christopher, for the clarification and additional information. While I'm still dubious about reaching out to buyers with an approach that includes the fact that their visit to one's web site was recorded (even by business, if not personally) I can certainly see the benefit of knowing who has an interest in one's site. Then approaching that business with a "may I help you" that does not include disclosure of what specifically prompted the approach. I think that people in general are EXTREMELY sensitive about privacy issues regarding the world wide web and this service could easily be misconstrued as something inappropriate. That said, and as I said in my original post, it is also something that was probably inevitable and unavoidable, given convergence of diverse data sources.

I agree completely with Rob Millard. There's no information that can be identified and it doesn't matter if it's personal or business information. We have a right to be anonymous in the Internet but every site's web master tries to revoke our charter to be protected against hackers and spam. As for me I use software with GUI interface and online anonymizers with web interface regularly while surfing sites. I think the more such services will appear the better for us.

I have used such online and off line services like: SmartHide,
FindNot, Anonymous Surfing, HMA, Anonymouse.
Of cause there are a lot of such services, just type in Google - "Anonymous surfing" and you will see about 2 million pages.

They are not the only offering: LEADSExplorer www.leadsexplorer.com
Advantage: as this is a web service, no installation required. Just insert a java script line into your web pages.