Among today's snail mail was a card with three "ExtraCare" coupons from CVS. (For those of you living in a land without CVS, ExtraCare is just another one of those card-based accounts where the store tracks your every move in exchange for "special savings" and cash back.)

What bugs me about ExtraCare is what CVS does -- or rather fails to do -- with my data. Based on the coupons they regularly send me, it is clear that they are paying attention to what I buy. But more often than not, the savings offered are for products I never buy. Yet apparently in the minds of the ExtraCare analysts there persists the belief that I just might buy what they're attempting to sell. This bothers me for a couple of reasons: For one thing, I feel like they are trying to subtly manipulate my behavior. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm starting to sound like the local Contrail Conspiracy Theorist. But why else would CVS be sending me coupons for products I don't buy EVER? Because maybe, just maybe, I can be persuaded by a coupon. And maybe, just maybe, that sound you hear is the oinking of winged pigs soaring above the frozen flames of hell. If the fine folks monitoring my shopping habits could be bothered to pay closer attention, they would conclude that their attempts are futile: No coupon or flier, regardless of its shine, schpiel, or savings, moves me to purchase something. Surely their data would support my claim. Which brings me to the other, more significant, reason that I'm bothered: They are wasting my time with irrelevant information. Send me something that I can actually use. How about three coupons for products I already buy as a way of saying, "We noticed you spend a lot of money here and give us lots and lots of data. Thanks!!" If things continue to be irrelevant, I will simply stop using my card.

Relevancy. That's what I want in return for my attention data. And with any luck, one day I'll be able to ask for it with a reasonable expectation of receiving it. After all, one of the principles of AttentionTrust is

Economy
You can pay attention to whomever you wish and receive value in return. Your attention has WORTH.

How empowering!

I realize that these things take time. But ultimately, I want every bit of every (AttentionTrust member) page I view to be 100% relevant to me. In my perfect world, this relevancy would come in the form of ad-free content. But I'm not so foolish as to think that my inattention to (in the form of not clicking on) the ads you display will cause them to magically disappear. So if you insist on cluttering up the content that I came for with things that I did not, at least take the time to analyze my existing attention data and make use of it.

Given how much I do online, one should be able to put together a nearly complete profile regarding what I will -- and will not -- pay attention to. Undoubtedly my data over time would reveal:

• The finite number of places where I consistently shop
• What types of products I frequently buy
• What types of food I eat
• What my political views are
• Who my favorite authors are
• What types of music I listen to
• What car manufacturer I prefer
• Etc. etc.

Looking more closely, one might even be able to discern the opposites of those things (i.e., where I never shop, what I never buy, and so forth). Combine all of this information with the data-supported fact that ads very rarely motivate me to buy new things, and you're left with this: The only way you're going to make money off of my visit to your page is to display INCREDIBLY targeted ads for things I would almost certainly be interested in buying, but for some reason hadn't bought yet.

For instance, I regularly search for vegetarian recipes because I am a vegetarian. I never search for -- or click on -- diet information because I am not interested in going on a diet. The reason I regularly search for recipes online -- and, more generically speaking, buy audio books -- is because I prefer electronic media over print. From this information, the savvy attention analyst would presumably conclude that there's not much point in displaying all those ads for diet plans and print cookbooks: They are wasting your space and my time.

On the other hand, if I saw an ad from CompUSA (where I regularly shop) for the latest AMD processor (because I favor AMD over Intel) approximately 1 year after the last time I went shopping for and/or purchased a processor (because I'd be thinking it was once again time to upgrade), and the thing was on sale (because I'm cheap), I'd very likely stop attending to the content I came for and start attending to that ad because that ad would be highly relevant to me.

If your ads were that highly-targeted to my unique needs, interests, habits, and personal philosophy, I'd almost be willing to consider them content. I'd certainly stop resenting their presence. That's the value I'd like to receive in exchange for sharing my attention data. And if I don't get that, I'm going to think twice about sharing my data with you. After all, if you're an AttentionTrust member, you know that "(I) own (my) attention and can store it wherever (I) wish. (I) have CONTROL."