Can profiles include information derived from multiple transactional data sources?
Yes, it has been common for many years to build profiles for marketing purposes by merging multiple sources of information. For example, profiles for direct marketing can be created by aggregating in-house purchases with third party information collected by a credit bureau. Aggregating information from multiple sources requires determining whether two records from two different sources refer to the same person, business, or other entity. Sometimes this is called householding. For small numbers of transactions and solutions which are not required to be completely accurate, there is commerical software which does an adequate job. The problem is that as the number of data sources grows, as the total number of records grows, and as the expectation for accuracy grows, the problem becomes harder and harder. For example, 90% accuracy might be just fine for marketing purposes, 95% accuracy might be just fine for credit related purposes, while 98% might not be accurate enough for many people fo
