Privacy and VortexDNA
I’ve been writing about privacy issues regularly: about Google’s sorrows and joys, about the Aikido approach to privacy, about the worst-case repercussions of making your opinions public.
At the same time, this is the VortexDNA blog. So I think it’s time to bring the concept home. What will privacy look like in a VortexDNA-enabled world?
Privacy
Much of the debate about privacy, particularly in search, has centered around clickstream and history. Which sites have you visited? What searches did you run? The reason behind this is simple: websites live or die based on this data.
Either the site sells something itself, like Amazon, or it makes money through advertising goods and services sold by others, like Google or eBay. Either way, in order to succeed in these business models, the sites have to become highly effective at pairing the visitor with the product or the ad. Historical data, whether it’s aggregated, personalized, or unique but non-identifying, is the primary tool these sites use to increase the relevance of their content and the accuracy of their recommendations.
Unfortunately, people don’t always want their search history to be stored, but they do want relevant content. So how can you reconcile those two things?
How VortexDNA fits in
Although VortexDNA also increases relevance and accuracy, the technology works based on the user’s core purpose and values rather than on historical data. The difference is subtle yet profound. If I use your history to recommend things to you, I have to know your history and continue to track it forever, or at least as long as I stay in business. If, on the other hand, I recommend things to you based on your purpose and values, then it doesn’t matter what your history is or what you do tomorrow.
It’s like the difference between using an X-Ray machine and having X-Ray vision. To use an X-Ray machine, you have to go to the hospital, go into the room with the machine, position yourself or whatever you’re trying to X-Ray… but if you have X-Ray vision, you take it with you wherever you go. Historical data is the machine; VortexDNA is you. Instead of giving you X-Ray eyes, though, it gives you Relevant Eyes. That’s why we say, ‘You are the filter.’
You can take your Relevant Eyes with you wherever you go. So when you visit a site for the first time, it doesn’t have to begin to compile a history or buy information about you from somewhere else. Your core purpose and values will filter their content and create the most relevant experience for you.
What do you think of this model? Do you think it has merit? And what would you do if you had X-Ray vision? Try to keep it clean, please 
