Personalisation in Online Commercial and Public Services

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Personalisation in Online Commercial and Public
Services

• Prof. dr. Corien Prins
• Center for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT)
• www.uvt.nl/tilt
• Tilburg University
• NVN Symposium, Amsterdam, January 2006

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Personalisation Google
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Personalisation Buddy Alert
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Personalisation Leefstijltv.nl
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The NvN Research Project

• aim with this explorative research project was to
  contribute to the further theoretical and
  empirical study of the new, developing and
  complex phenomenon of online personalisation by
  exploring present-day developments,
  considerations and dilemmas.

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Why this Study?

• concept of personalisation appears to mean many
  things and difficult to distinguish from related
  concepts, such as mass-customisation and
  mass-individualisation.
• online personalisation often researched in
  relationship to only one issue (e.g. privacy,
  technological design, ecommerce).
• theoretical framework to be applied to the
  developments in the area of online
  personalisation appears to be lacking.

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Our Working Definition of Online Personalisation

• online personalisation is a set of techniques and
  methods to select, filter and classify user
  information to mediate the informational
  relationship between service providers and users.
• tailor-made services to customers
• use of various new ICTs and combinations thereof
• Interaction between supplier and user
  context-awareness

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Techniques Used

• Internet (Web personalisation)
• Mobile Applications (Cell Identification)
• Satellite-Based Location Tracking Techniques
• Identification, Authentication and Verification
  Techniques
• Domotica (Smart buildings)
• RFID, nanotechnology

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Case Studies

• Distinctions
• - different online service environments, that is
  Internet-based and online service environments
  based on other ICTs
• - applications initiated by both private and
  public sector organisations, as well as with the
  involvement of public-private partnerships
• - applications from different countries around
  the world.

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Case Studies II

• MyYahoo
• Amazon.com
• eBay
• Rabobank
• Windows Media Rights Manager
• MyVirginia
• Automated Border Passage Schiphol Airport
• Citizen Electronic Identity Card Finland
• Buddy Alert (Mobiloco)
• Leefstijl TV

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Four Questions

• Four issues appear to play a key role in thinking
  about online personalisation
• Does identity matter?
• Does technology matter?
• Does the user matter?
• Does the organisation matter?

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Identity

• Two central aspects
• User information
• Relationship with the user
• what then is the relationship between
  personalisation and identification as well as
  between personalisation and identity?
• at present personalisation does not mean that
  users are by definition identifiable persons
  (e.g. merely a segmented group of similar users)

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Impact of Personalisation on the Concept of
Identity

• becomes a highly context-specific concept
• new possibilities of self-presentation and
  fragmented identification
• individuals are only involved in service
  provision in a certain role
• by means of certain categorical identifiers (as
  certain types of consumers, taxpayers, voters,
  readers, patients, et cetera)
• offers interesting new perspectives and questions
  on the role as well as status of identity and
  identification.

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Does Technology Matter?

• More than just Internet (combinations of
  different ICTs)
• Goes beyond the mere deployment of a certain
  technology or combination of technologies.
• Not the technology itself, but the collection,
  management and use of user information is at the
  heart
• It is about interconnectivity of people
  (identities) and/or organisations, not so much of
  machines or technical devices.
• And it is about mediating an informational
  relationship.

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Does the User Matter?

• characterised by their responsiveness and
  adaptation.
• learning from customers by logging, selecting,
  filtering and classifying on an interactive basis
  is essential.
• personalisation not only implies creating added
  value by adapting content to the user. It also
  focuses on how exactly that content is
  communicated for maximum effect.
• Key question is then organisation-controlled or
  user-controlled?
• But users must be able, i.e. be skilled enough,
  to control (understand) the system, the
  decisions behind it and their implications.

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User-Control and User Interests

• More than just data protection and obvious
  user-control mechanisms.
• Also
• inclusion and exclusion
• lock-in
• reliability and quality of the information and
  services
• transparency and verification of the statistical
  models, profiles and algorithms used.

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Does the Organisation Matter?

• Usually not a single-organisation issue
• service delivery with or without multiple partner
  organisations
• Differences between public and private sector
• amount of choice of the user.

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Conclusion

• Online personalisation is not merely introducing
  a new application on the service market.
• It is a complex issue with numerous dimensions
  and different players.
• Not only organizations, but users as well as,
  will determine the actual potential of online
  personalisation.
• Concept with many opportunities, but pitfalls as
  well.

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End Result

• A.M.B. Lips, S. van der Hof, J.E.J. Prins, A.A.P.
  Schudelaro, Issues of Online Personalisation in
  Commercial and Public Service Delivery
• Wolf Legal Publishers, 2005
• Alvailable at lthttp//rechten.uvt.nl/prins/gt
  (under past projects)