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“We Know Who You Are and We Know Where You Live”: A Research Agenda for Web Demographics

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Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge

Abstract

In the digital era, personal data, such as full name, address, age, phone number, and household members, may scatter across various administrative records, databases of private companies, and social networks, as well as through information contributed as volunteered geographic information (VGI). People-finder sites gather such data and provide user interfaces for Internet users to query web demographics. The emergence of web technologies such as mash-ups, web mapping, and webscraping presents opportunities to capitalize on the availability of web demographics and opens up new frontiers of research. The main objectives of this chapter are to (1) examine web demographics as an example of VGI and (2) explore the research agenda of web demographics. More research and development are needed to enhance extraction rules, identify and remove erroneous enumeration (e.g., duplicate, fictitious, and incomplete records), validate the coverage and accuracy of web demographics, and explore potential applications. Web demographics must be used cautiously in light of the uncertainty of web demographics (e.g., digital divide), privacy issues, and other societal impacts.

This title is partially adapted from Goss (1995) as a tribute to his early vision of “data merchants” acquiring massive personal demographic data and the instrumentation prospects and potential for resistance to geodemographic marketing systems.

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Acknowledgments

The author is thankful to Yan Lin, who provided valuable assistance in preparing the statistics of web demographics acquired from several people-finder sites. Collaboration with colleagues and fellow students, including Niem Huynh, David Parr, John Davis, and Anne Ngu, on projects related to web demographics is instrumental to the ideas articulated in this manuscript. The author is in debt to Nancy Wilson, David Parr, and Niem Huynh for their editorial assistance and helpful reviews. The constructive comments from the reviewers greatly improved the quality of this manuscript. Any errors in the manuscript are solely the responsibility of the author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Texas Center for Geographic Information Science, Department of Geography, Texas State University – San Marcos, San Marcos, TX, 78666, USA

    T. Edwin Chow

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  1. T. Edwin Chow
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Correspondence to T. Edwin Chow .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Geography, Ohio State University, N. Oval Mall 154, Columbus, 43210, Ohio, USA

    Daniel Sui

  2. Dept. Geography, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195-3550, Washington, USA

    Sarah Elwood

  3. College of Letters & Science, Dept. Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara, 93106-4060, California, USA

    Michael Goodchild

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Chow, T.E. (2013). “We Know Who You Are and We Know Where You Live”: A Research Agenda for Web Demographics. In: Sui, D., Elwood, S., Goodchild, M. (eds) Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4587-2_15

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