I gather that the “blind spot” is essentially fingerprinting consumers to create a situation where you know something they don’t, and then exploiting it. What an interesting thought! There are maybe two ways to develop a blind spot, knowing specific information about people and knowing general information.

Insurance companies are an example of the former, and have been doing it from day 1. Customize rates based on risk perception by acquiring data to validate the assumptions of risk, and therefore the cost of the policy. At times this has been controversial, e.g. the example of collecting genetic material to determine if someone is likely to develop a disease.

Another example is the stage hypnosis act. The hypnotist pre-screens people in the audience to make sure that a good show results when they come to the stage. As a start, only people who want to be on stage will put their hands up. The audience isn’t conscious of the fact that only suggestible people are on stage. That is the real magic part, the blind spot, of the act.

As far as using general knowledge of people’s behavior, consider the psychological games played to get them to buy products. One example is the 10 for $10 principal used to make people think they need to buy more of something (see http://priceless-the-book.blogspot.com/). This is a blind spot because most are unaware of the tactic, and buy more than they would normally.

And just how unaware are people to the blind spot? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBPG_OBgTWg

What happens when you give an online business the power to screen consumers, to funnel them in the direction you want, all based on “blind spot” information?

Moreover, what tools will be developed to grow the blind spot– what type of new fingerprinting technologies? Surveys may just be the infancy of a whole new way to exploit net going consumers!?

Keep us posted.

Thanks,

Dino