With more and more microcomputers popping up in items all around us, life is becoming much more convenient. Thermostats learn our temperature preferences. Refrigerators can report when food is low and assemble a shopping list for us automatically. Hugely convenient, right? But then you learn that these "smarter" devices are reporting the things they learn about your living habits. Do we feel secure about that kind of data being gathered almost as a side effect of these products' convenience?
I have worked in enough areas to see how hugely convenient data can be to companies. They can use this data to learn what things are important to their customers. They can even use it to identify problems in their products. Gathered data, when used anonymously, can benefit everyone. I am a big fan of the anonymous feedback that products gather for this reason. However, the flipside of the coin - gathering specific data about specific individuals and identifying it with them - is wrong, and there's really no way around that.
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I completely agree. I always enable feedback as long as the product or website has guaranteed that it will be anonymous. I'm all for a better product.
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