Special Lecture: Introduction to Information Delivery

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Special Lecture Introduction to Information
Delivery

• Prof. Xiaotie Deng
• Department of Computer Science

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Outline

• Introduction
• Angel Or Devil
• Information Blockage
• Spam
• Business
• Economics
• The Market For Lemons
• Key Research Issues

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Introduction Retrieval vs. Delivery

• Retrieval means you intentionally fetch some
  information that you want, by telling that
  intention to the information source.
• E.g. You Google IBM ThinkPad
• Delivery means the information source send you
  something that you did not ask for
• E.g. A spammer send you a spam mail about its
  special offers on IBM ThinkPad

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Introduction Examples

• Good Examples
• A student email his CV to Prof. Xiaotie Deng to
  look for a chance of MPhil study in City U of HK
• Bad Examples
• Spam Email
• Banner Advertisement
• Pop Up Advertisement
• Gangster Software
• You dont know when it is installed on your
  computer
• Once it is installed, you will never be able to
  uninstall it completely
• Advertisement Message Delivered Through Instant
  Messaging Software

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Introduction Examples Spam Email
Here is a real spam email I have just received.
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Introduction Examples Banner Advertisement
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Introduction Examples Pop Up Advertisement

• When you open a new web page, a window pops up
  and displays some advertisement.
• Hard to find these days, since most modern web
  browsers block pop up windows by default.

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Introduction Examples Gangster Software
Hey, guys, how can eBay related to Storm Codec,
the media player?
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Introduction Examples Advertisement Message
Delivered Through Instant Messaging Software
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Angel Or Devil Page 1

• Is information delivery Angel or Devil?
• To deliver, or not to deliver?
• That is a question!

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Angel Or Devil Page 2

• Information delivery is a technology like the
  Internet, it is neither good nor bad. It all
  depends on how you use it.
• Internet
• Contains a lot of useful information
• e.g. Stock Market Data
• Also contains a lot of bad and ugly information
• e.g. Pornography, Drug abuse
• Information Delivery
• May deliver you useful information
• A student you are looking for
• May waste your time
• Spam emails

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Angel Or Devil Page 3

• Unfortunately, Information Delivery is heavily
  abused today
• Spam email is the most common form of information
  delivery today
• However, one man's meat is another man's poison

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Angel Or Devil Page 4

• Can you figure out some other ways to do
  information delivery ?
• Are they good or bad in general ?

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Information Blockage

• Techniques used to avoid unwanted information
  delivery
• However, one man's meat is another man's poison
• You use the technologies selectively

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Information Blockage Examples

• Spam Email
• Banner Advertisement
• Pop Up Advertisement
• Gangster Software
• Advertisement Message Delivered Through Instant
  Messaging Software

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Information Blockage Examples Spam Email

• Spam email filters can filter out a lot of,
  although not all of, spam emails
• Problems
• Some times non-spam emails are detected as spam
  emails
• Not all spam email can be detected

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Information Blockage Examples Banner
Advertisement

• Some browsers can intelligently detect banner ads
  and display the web page without display the ads

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Information Blockage Examples Pop Up Ads

• Pop up ads allows web masters to make an income
  from advertisements while not affecting the
  appearance of their web page
• But pop up ads are very inconvenient for users
• Today most browsers block pop up ads, and this
  kind of ads is almost dead these days

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Information Blockage Examples Gangster
Software 1

• Gangster software are usually bundled with other
  software.
• Today bundling software is deprecated in China,
  and the government is trying to set up certain
  laws to forbid gangster software. Click. Click
  For Definition.
• The newest version of Storm Codec (the media
  player) comes bundling free

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Information Blockage Examples Gangster
Software 2

• The browser will check the digital signatures of
  downloaded software and ask the user to confirm
  that they actually want to install that software

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Information Blockage Examples Gangster
Software 3

• There are a lot of software targeted at
  uninstalling gangster software
• 3721 is believed to be the father of all gangster
  software in China. Click
• You dont know when it is installed on your
  computer
• Once it is installed, you will never be able to
  uninstall it completely
• Ironically, the so called father of 3721, has
  opened a company 360safe.com to provide free
  software to uninstall gangster software. Click

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Information Blockage Examples Advertisement
Message Delivered Through Instant Messaging
Software

• You usually can get rid of the ads by paying a
  VIP membership subscription
• No free lunch
• Some non-official software can hack away the
  advertisements
• Will you risk your online identity?
• Is that free lunch?

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Spam

• Also called
• Unsolicited Commercial E-mail
• The content of most spam are not always bad. They
  are usually used to do advertisements.
• What is the incentives of the spammers?

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Spam Business Is Spam Totally Useless?

• Is Spam Totally Useless?
• Normal people say spam is useless and bad.
• We scientists do not give solutions without
  evidences and analysis.

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Spam Business Cost

• Sending spam without being sued does cost money
• Labor
• Machine
• Expert knowledge to avoid being tracked
• Then who is paying for the 100 spam emails you
  receive every day?

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Spam Business Revenue

• Because there are some new customers the spam
  emails will be succeeded to catch
• Suppose sending 100,000,000 spam emails can get
  you 100 customers
• The average cost per spam US0.0000001
• The average revenue per customer US100
• Spammers income is US10000 US100 US9900

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Spam Business Problems

• While spam email does benefit the spammers and
  potential customers, it imposes negative
  externality on other users
• It cost time to process spam emails
• Which is spam, which is not
• Delete spam
• The time spent is the opportunity cost that
  readers could have used to do other economic
  activities.
• In the previous example, 99,999,900 email users
  are being imposed negative externality which they
  do not want.
• In other words, spam as an advertisement method
  is highly inefficient.

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Spam Economics Question

• Economists do not care about who get the surplus,
  we usually only care about the social surplus
• Economics is about efficiency.
• What is the optimal surplus we can achieve?
• Politicians care about equality.
• How to divide the surplus fairly?
• Could spam email actually create social surplus,
  even if the surplus of some of the email users
  are sacrificed?

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Spam Economics Answer

• The marginal cost of sending spam is low
• Spammers can send more spam with less money,
  compared to printed spam
• The cost of reading spam will be huge for the
  entire society, since there are so many of them
• The success probability of a spam is low
• The benefit of spammers and the other part of the
  society will be limited
• The cost imposed on the society is higher than
  the benefit the society gets.
• Spam is unwanted by economists.

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Spam The Market For Lemons

• An economic theory on information asymmetry
• Firstly appeared in a 1970 paper The Market for
  Lemons Quality Uncertainty and the Market
  Mechanism
• by George Akerlof, who have won the 2001 Nobel
  Prize of Economics together with Michael Spence,
  and Joseph Stiglitz, for their research related
  to asymmetric information

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Spam The Market For Lemons Original Idea

• Lemon originally refers to defected used cars
• Sellers know better about their cars
• Buyers can not tell, so they take the average
  quality as the expected quality
• But the market price of used cars is there
• Eventually low quality cars drive out high
  quality ones

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Spam The Market For Lemons Criteria

• Asymmetry of information
• no buyers can accurately assess value of product
  through examination before sale is made
• all sellers can more accurately assess value of
  the product prior to sale
• An incentive exists for the seller to pass of a
  low quality product as a mediocre or high-quality
  one
• Deficiency of effective public quality
  assurances (by reputation or regulation)
• Deficiency of effective guarantees / warrantees

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Spam The Market For Lemons Examples

• Used Cars
• Used Computers
• Personal Profile In Online Dating Clubs

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Spam The Market for Lemons Applications In
Spam Market

• In the spam mail market, spammers know the
  quality of their mail better than receivers
• Receivers, who can not tell the quality of each
  spam, will expect the quality to be the average
  of all spam, and treat every spam equally
• Thus, in order to get more receiver attention,
  spammers will send more spam
• To achieve that, quality is sacrificed
• But total available attentions are limited, so
  eventually low quality spam drive out high
  quality ones

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Key Research Issues

• Information Delivery Is A New Research Field
• Key Research Issues
• Improve Efficiency
• Reduce Negative Externality

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Key Research Issues Improve Efficiency

• Better customer targeting strategy
• E.g. research show that putting bear and diaper
  together can increase the sales of both. This is
  used as a classic example in data mining course.
• Use better technology to track the source of
  emails
• Client/Server side spam filter

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Key Research Issues Reduce Negative
Externality 1

• The problem with negative externality is that the
  one who creates the cost does not bear the cost
• Economists assume that spammer will operate at
  their own efficient level
• And they actually are
• When spammer is operating at an efficient level,
  the society is not

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Key Research Issues Reduce Negative
Externality 2
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Key Research Issues Reduce Negative
Externality 3

• What are the possible solutions?
• Increase the transaction cost of sending emails
• Spammers pay for readers reading their spam
• Electronic Stamp System
• Buy e-stamps
• Attach e-stamp when you send emails
• You reader can decline giving your e-stamp back

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Open Discussion Your Ideas?
Professor, I have a good idea!
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Summary

• Introduction
• Angel Or Devil
• Information Blockage
• Spam
• Business
• Economics
• The Market For Lemons
• Key Research Issues