Identity Resolution Daily

Note: There will be no post on Monday as we will be observing Memorial Day. Enjoy your holiday weekend, and we hope to ’see’ you back here on Wednesday.

[Post from Infoglide] Partners in Crime Fighting

“eBay and other online auction services have taken some heat from retailers and Congress because organized retail crime rings and other shoplifters are using these types of services for e-fencing. It’s a bit of a dilemma for these sites because if they do the right thing, and reduce e-fencing on their sites, they lose revenue, which is certainly something no business, public or private, wants to do.”

The 451 Group (requires free registration): An MDM acquisition: the next deal for Informatica?

“Through a combination of homegrown and acquired software, Informatica now has all the requisite pieces for a complete MDM offering – data access, data analysis and profiling, data correction, cleansing, data transformation and now identity management – but not an actual MDM platform itself. It therefore seems logical to us that once the company has digested Identity, a deal scheduled to close in May, it will start eyeing an MDM target to provide a complete offering.”

WKYC.com: Shoplifting: A $40 billion enterprise

“A National Retail Federation study indicates 75 percent of businesses have found their shoplifted items for sale on the internet. . . . Bokovitz said increased incidents of shoplifting are directly related to the state legislature’s decision to drop progressive sentencing on theft related crimes. The penalties for shoplifting no longer increase with the number of times you commit the crime. So who really pays the price? ‘Me and you, the consumer, everybody who plays by the rules because our costs just went up,’ Bokovitz said.”

Netrics HD: The Monk Factor

“It’s great to see that simply collecting customer data is no longer good enough - the data needs to be usable to benefit the business. ‘Refining customer data quality and access to customer data have emerged as two of the top marketing investment priorities of b-to-b CMOs this year. Half of b-to-b marketers plan to put more resources against creating marketing databases, cleaning up customer data, improving sales force automation and CRM integration, according to Forrester Research in its “B2B CMO Investment Priorities for 2008” report.’”

PogoWasRight.org: DHS to monitor access to IT systems

“Government employees, contractors and consultants with access to Homeland Security Department computer systems are among those whose names and personal information will be kept in a newly created database, according to a notice posted in the Federal Register.”

DMReview: Master Data Management and Service-Oriented Architecture

“One of the many ‘hidden benefits’ of a successful master data management (MDM) strategy is the contribution it can make to your enterprise’s move toward a service-oriented architecture (SOA).”

Share This

eBay and other online auction services have taken some heat from retailers and Congress because organized retail crime rings and other shoplifters are using these types of services for e-fencing. It’s a bit of a dilemma for these sites because if they do the right thing, and reduce e-fencing on their sites, they lose revenue, which is certainly something no business, public or private, wants to do.

But eBay seems to be doing the right thing and has dedicated resources to addressing this problem. They have established the Global Law Enforcement Organization (GLEO) to “promote the safe use of their platforms and to collaborate with local, federal and international law enforcement to:

• Help keep the community safe
• Enforce policies
• Prosecute fraudsters”

They also have a partnership with LeadsOnline that allows law enforcement to locate sellers of possible stolen goods that are being listed on their site.

This is key because even when retailers have a really strong case against a seller, it takes a lot of time to find the seller and work with law enforcement to prosecute them. With eBay’s partnerships with LeadsOnline and law enforcement, retailers can more quickly and easily recover stolen goods and catch the bad guys.

But are we putting the cart before the horse? This takes care of the catching and retrieving part but how do the retailers find the stolen merchandise and the crooks? Well, they can do this either manually or they can automate the process. With the first option, retailers assign investigators to manually monitor online auction sites, checking goods for sale against lists of merchandise that have been stolen from their stores. Obviously this is time and resource consuming.

Luckily there’s an easier way. Infoglide Software’s Online Auction Monitoring solution automatically monitors online auction sites for merchandise that is a strong possible match for stolen goods. Online Auction Monitoring can also tap into other key sources of data such as human resources, vendors, reward programs, and incidents databases, so not only can retailers be alerted of a nefarious seller, but they can also know that the seller is an employee or customer of their store.

In a recent study with a regional grocer, Infoglide Software monitored 17 ‘high-risk items’ on a popular auction site for just five days. At the end of the monitoring period, more than 30 unique sellers were identified as having a history of selling many high-risk items over the previous 90 days.

So though e-fencing continues to be significant source of lost revenue for retailers, there are now tools and resources available to address this problem. Retailers now have their own partners in crime fighting.

Share This

FurnitureToday: High tech security keeps shrinkage down

“Point-of-sale monitoring also is on the increase, allowing retailers to collect and analyze information on every transaction, thereby identifying trends and unusual patterns in each store. . . . ‘There are a number of new technology tools available to help retailers operate more efficiently, including intelligent cameras and software that can help detect criminal activity,’ said ADT’s Bean.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: Jill Dyche: My Podcast Posse at TDWI

“Anyway, I got to interview a stellar crew last week and thought I’d highlight them here:”

Concurring Opinions: My New Book, Understanding Privacy

“I am very happy to announce the publication of my new book, UNDERSTANDING PRIVACY (Harvard University Press, May 2008). There has been a longstanding struggle to understand what ‘privacy’ means and why it is valuable. Professor Arthur Miller once wrote that privacy is ‘exasperatingly vague and evanescent.’ In this book, I aim to develop a clear and accessible theory of privacy, one that will provide useful guidance for law and policy.”

Homeland Security Watch: Chertoff, FEMA Chief Meet with HLSwatch Today

“The third ‘blogger roundtable’ convenes this afternoon, this time the Secretary of Homeland Security is accompanied by the head of FEMA to discuss the upcoming hurricane season. . . . Submit a comment below if you have any specific questions in this general subject area that you would like raised during the roundtable.”

ebiz: Informatica Completes Acquisition Of Identity Systems

“‘Together, Identity Systems and Informatica will provide a new generation of innovative technology to meet the demands of organizations in today’s global information economy,’ said Ivan Chong, General Manager of Informatica’s Data Quality Business Unit. ‘More so than ever before, corporations and governments need identity resolution integrated with data quality initiatives across their enterprises.’”

Share This

Retail Solutions Online: Return Fraud & Abuse Costs Retailers More Than $15.5B

“The survey found that nearly 70 percent of the respondents specified that it is an important issue to their company, and the majority of retailers – 64 percent – report that focusing on reducing refund fraud is a high priority. However, there is clearly a performance gap because two-thirds of retailers believe that their current return policies and systems are ‘ineffective’ or only ’somewhat’ effective in deterring return fraud and abuse. That indicates that there is still much room for improvement on the issue.”

Hub Solution Designs Blog: Next Week’s DIG Conference

“While I think it’s true that MDM is in fact needed at most large organizations, having to coordinate with an already-underway SOA initiative, or step back from a planned BI initiative and first tackle MDM, does complicate things a bit. So that’s the ‘problem’ part. The ‘opportunity’ part is that, for organizations that have the foresight or the luck to tackle MDM first, it makes implementing SOA or achieving business intelligence success that much easier.”

NBC 29: Insurance Fraud Costing Virginians Thousands of Dollars

“Insurance fraud is the second most common and costly white collar crime in the country. It costs the economy nearly $85 billion a year.”

Share This

[Post from Infoglide] More Than “Nice”: Identity Resolution is Core to MDM

“Writing about Informatica’s acquisition of Identity Systems, industry expert Jill Dyche offers a great perspective on MDM. This author of a number of very useful books on MDM, CRM, and data warehousing shared in a recent post that she sees the acquisition by Informatica as a good one for the company and the industry.”

DataFlux Community of Experts: Privacy and Data Governance

“At the recent data governance executive briefings that I participated in with Scott Gidley from DataFlux, one of the examples that came up in conversation regarding data governance was that of data privacy.”

WFAA.com: Organized retail theft rings work stores

“Retailers say organized packs of shoplifters are sweeping shelves clean, then reselling stolen goods on eBay or at flea markets. ‘We have not seen regular shoplifting rise over the last several weeks or months because of inflation,’ said Kroger spokesman Garry Huddleston. ‘What we have seen increase is organized retail crime.’”

Today’s THV: MLK Commissioners Defend Director Linked To Fraud Ring

“The state’s insurance commissioner said last week that the state could pursue charges against DuShun Scarbrough, who began working for the commission in March. Scarbrough has not been charged with a crime, but court papers filed by the state say he received more than $19,000 in false insurance claims for accidents tied to the ring.”

Share This

PogoWasRight.org: Huge Databases Offer a Research Gold Mine — and Privacy Worries

“Last month several news organizations reported on the emergence of ‘fusion centers’ — vast data clearinghouses, operated by state law-enforcement agencies, that can instantly call up key personal information on anyone: telephone numbers, insurance records, family ties, and much more.”

Supermarket News: Retailers Seek Solutions for Growing Organized Thefts

“’During the past eight to 10 years [organized retail crime] has gone from a minor problem to a major problem, and it all has to do with the Internet,’ said Griffin. Organized shoplifters were once forced to fence stolen goods through local pawn shops and flea markets, but now, online auction sites give them access to a national market where they can sell large quantities of merchandise anonymously.”

Content Matters: i2 Acquired for $185 million by Silver Lake

“Private equity firm Silver Lake Sumeru has acquired i2 Technologies for $185 million from ChoicePoint. . . It’s been a few years since I’ve looked closely at i2, but what always surprised me was that there seemed to be a lot more hype than substance in the product. The product was positioned as an analysis tool, suggesting that it would help uncover various social networks and relationships in data, but when I frequently met with i2 users, I found that it was used more as a presentation tool.”

PogoWasRight.org: Solove: Understanding Privacy

“Privacy is one of the most important concepts of our time, yet it is also one of the most elusive. As rapidly changing technology makes information more and more available, scholars, activists, and policymakers have struggled to define privacy, with many conceding that the task is virtually impossible.”

Share This

[Post from Infoglide Software] Are Name Matching and Entity Resolution Equivalent? No.

“First of all, I take issue with the comment that entity resolution is ‘a fancy name for name matching.’ Name matching is necessary but not sufficient for entity resolution, i.e. entity resolution (aka identity resolution) includes name matching analytics plus quite a bit more.”

Enterprise Systems: Informatica Taps Identity Systems for Identity Resolution

“Chong argues that the addition of identity resolution technology to its core data quality capability lets Informatica validate data wherever it resides. ‘We think that with the way the global information economy is evolving, we’ve talked with several CIOs who feel that the enterprise boundary that exists around the data, it doesn’t exist anymore,’ he indicates.”

Data Governance and Data Quality Insider: The Solution Maturity Cycle

“I saw the news about Informatica’s acquisition of Identity Systems, and it got me thinking. I recognize a familiar pattern that all too often occurs in the enterprise software business. I’m going to call it the Solution Maturity Cycle. It goes something like this:”

LPinformation: Uniting Against OCR

“Based on the estimates of several retailers, approximately 18 percent of all stolen goods (around $5.4 billion) are being sold via the Internet. More strikingly, retailers estimate that approximately 25 to 30 percent of goods being sold on web auction sites were stolen or fraudulently obtained, according to NRF’s preliminary survey findings.”

BloggingStocks: Informatica buys a new identity

“So far, Identity has more than 500 customers. But, with the extra distribution – and marketing possibilities – of Informatica, footprint should expand quickly, especially with the imperatives for security, compliance and homeland security. What’s more, the deal should provide more heft against a major competitor, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM).”

Share This

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network - Blog: Dan Power: Business Intelligence Big 4

“The cover story for the April 14, 2008 InformationWeek focused on business intelligence. The article titled ‘Then There Were Four’ is by Mary Hayes Weier (pps. 33-41). The overriding question of the article is: “Are the big 4 making BI better?” She never really answers the question. My answer is MAYBE.”

Intelligent Enterprise: Informatica Plans To Add Identity Software To Integration Platform

“Informatica, which is set to acquire Nokia subsidiary Identity Systems, plans to add the company’s technology within Informatica’s integration software to help customers resolve identity data about a variety of objects, including people, companies and products.”

b-eye.com - Business Intelligence Network: Your Business Intelligence Program - Managing Spin with a Common Vocabulary

“A large part of this is simply the vocabulary we use to communicate with our business constituents. That means you, Mister IT Spin Meister. The table in Figure 1 reflects an example of the ‘before and after’ language of a typical IT shop when it comes to business intelligence:”

ONN: Stores Want Protection From Large Thefts

“Grocery and retail store owners want Ohio lawmakers to help crack down on organized crime that does large-scale shoplifting. State senator Bill Seitz says it’s more than petty shoplifting than prompted him to support the legislation. Teams of crooks that police call organized retail thefts have been caught on tape sweeping the shelves of valuable goods.”

DataFlux Community of Experts: Clarification on Defining Master Data Management

“I was reviewing some material I had written about 1 1/2 years ago on MDM and it struck me that I have gone through some revisions on my opinions regarding the definition of master data. At first my perception was that master data, by definition, should be extracted from its numerous source systems and consolidated into its own data repository, to be accessed by downstream applications.”

Share This

[Post from Infoglide Software] Identity Resolution Market “on the Rise”

“In case you missed it, leading data quality vendor Informatica announced last week that they are acquiring Identity Systems from its parent Nokia for approximately $85M in cash, validating a recent prediction by Gartner analyst Mark Beyer that “entity resolution and analysis” (aka Identity Resolution) products provide valuable benefits to user organizations, are part of a market space that’s “on the rise,” and will move fairly rapidly through the hype cycle to implementation.”

IT-Director.com: Informatica to acquire Identity Systems

“Of course the other point is that this gives Informatica a distinct lead in this area over everybody else in the data quality space (Trillium, Dataflux, SAP et al) with the exception of IBM. Which leaves one final question: who is going to buy Infoglide?”

PogoWasRight.org: Wacky Canadians Still Believe in Privacy (commentary)

“Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff caused a little ruckus up north a couple weeks ago as he was pushing his plan to share databases of international air travelers’ fingerprints with the Canadians, Brits and Aussies.”

Content Matters: Informatica Acquires Identity Systems

“Identity Systems is among the leaders in the identity resolution space, competing against IBM, which acquired Language Analysis Systems (LAS) and System Research & Development (SRD), and Austin-based Infoglide Software.”

Kotaku: Man Swaps Garbage Filled 360 For Cash

“Wal-Mart has long been known for its liberal return policy, but one Xbox 360 owner took it too far.”

Gartner: Informatica Expands Data Quality With Identity Systems Buy

“Identity Systems’ tools can conduct cross-language matching — for example, matching ‘Robert’ in English with the Chinese character equivalent. Matching has long been a part of data quality management, but Informatica will now be able to offer other options beyond traditional matching approaches, which support many marketing, sales support, fraud detection and intelligence applications. This will be of interest to master data management (MDM) and business intelligence program strategists.”

Share This

Softpedia: Nokia Sells Identity Systems to Informatica

“‘After thorough consideration, Nokia decided that Identity Systems’ business has a much bigger potential as part of Informatica since identity resolution is a key part of many data quality and data integration initiatives,’ declared Tom Furlong, SVP, Services & Software, Nokia.”

The Eagle-Tribune Online: Court document alleges how auto fraud scam worked

“Ortega noted that Kaplan had his own guidelines pertaining to the accidents: His rate was $250 apiece. He didn’t want more than three people in any accident vehicle. He also instructed runners to avoid certain insurance companies because their accident investigators tended to be more thorough than other insurers.”

delaware online: Police seek man suspected in DVD theft

“A 24-year-old Wilmington man is wanted by state police for allegedly trying to sell $600 worth of stolen DVDs to a retail store in Brandywine Hundred. State police said Joseph W. Nester, of the 200 block of N. DuPont St., will be charged under a recently enacted statute, ‘Organized retail crime with 2+ previous convictions,’ which makes it a felony for someone with at least two previous convictions to ’steal quantities [of merchandise] that would not normally be purchased for personal use with the intent to re-sell it.’”

Enterprise Systems: Ten Lessons from MDM Early Adopters

“MDM Insight 2008 featured an intimate atmosphere that fostered a rich dialogue among participants and highlighted numerous valuable lessons. Here is a recap of the 10 major lessons learned during our two-day immersion in MDM in Savannah.”

Insurance Journal: Seven Arrested in Calif. for Automobile Arson, Fraud Scams

“‘Insurance fraud is not a victimless crime,’ said Commissioner Poizner. ‘Every Californian pays the equivalent of a $500 tax per year because of insurance fraud. Criminals beware: purposely destroying your vehicle will not result in a paycheck - it will result in jail time.’”

Share This