NSA Wiretapping – Better than on-line ads?

Recent news about the NSA’s wiretapping program doesn’t come as much of a surprise. We knew they were doing wiretaps. What was surprising was the scale: they wanted to monitor everyone and everything. It’s hard to imagine that they will obtain useful information from such a broad-based approach.

Consider on-line advertising. There are a number of very large companies doing ad placement on the web. These companies have loads of personal information about us, extensive data mining tools, and years of experience trying to predict our interests and behavior.

And the result? Most of these ads are so ineffective that they are only worth around $0.00001 each.

Additionally, unlike the terrorists, most of us are not trying to hide our interests/behavior. So you would expect the results for the NSA to be even worse.

Now this comparison may not be fair (I’d love your feedback on this) but it makes me wonder how the NSA is going to get much value from this program. A lead on a potential terrorist that’s only worth $0.00001?