Metadata and Gathering Consumer Data

Introduction

Gathering consumer data has become increasing critical in the private sector industry profitability and survivability in todays market. The information gathered or data mining can range anywhere from personal information such as address to the consumers’ buying habits. All of gather on the consumer’s information represents what the industry call meta-data or big-data. Most business in today’s market both large and small hold onto some of the consumers personal data such as credit card information to social security numbers. Business such as Amazon and EBay collect a whole variety of information from their consumers regarding what type of items they buy, payment methods, gender, age, marital status, how long it took to buy the product, if they browsed for other items, and if they ultimately purchase other electronics (Gilmore, 2012). Data mining has become very popular for many companies and corporation due to the fact; it gives them their bang for the buck. They would be able to better strategize where they are going to focus their advertisements on and what group of consumers for their goods and services. On the other hand, metadata can be used for malicious intents too. The meta-data can be comprised and stolen as we have already seen with recent breaches such as Target. Meta-data is important to the business survival and only information security and awareness should be regulated by the government.

Amazon and its Meta-Data

Amazon is an American international electronic commerce company with headquarters in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest retailer. Amazon is a type of corporation that depends on the collection of meta-data to survive as an internet business entity. Today, Amazon is the everything store, a company with around $75 billion in annual revenue, a $140 billion market value, and few if any discernible limits to its growth (Stone, 2013). The corporation relies heavily on consumer metrics to make almost...