Spy On Yourself. For Profit?

Seth Goldstein wants you to be able to sell your Web stats. He wants to create a new software category, called "myware" that can allow all of your Web tracking, cookies, time spent online, favorites, etc. to be sold to the highest bidder. Snippet from a CNNMoney.com story:

"Everybody else is spying on me," he says, "so I want to spy on myself."

But Goldstein wants a better copy of his online behavior than anyone else has, and he wants to have complete control over who gets to see it. Instead of spyware, he calls the software that will let him do this "myware."

I thought Nielsen MediaMetrics was already doing this, albeit for their small selection of online Nielsen families.

Interesting idea, but scary. I agree with the story that the "return" we as cosumers get from cookies and other tracking mechanisms isn't worth the invasion. (As a Web developer however, the data is quite valuable to making Web sites and user experiences better.)

Via Slashdot and CNNMoney.com.

-aB