the perils of personalization

'"Now, even if a competitor offers the same type of customization and
interaction, your customer won't be able to get back to the same level
of convenience until he re-teaches the competitor what he's already
spent time and energy teaching you." In other words, relationship
marketing and its one-to-one cousin were from the start strategies to
limit consumer choice.' -- Steve Evans quoting Zuboff and Maxim
quoting Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, from
http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/theory-mathematicsofdesire-print.html

"In [customer relationship management] we find a hollow flattery of a
customer's individuality, purporting to offer something for 'you',
when in fact it disguises that 'you' are offered the familiar products
of mass manufacture, but in a way that increasingly limits choice and
maximises expenditure. Furthermore, the de-limited 'self' these
technologies 'know' is one the individual is invited, obliged even, to
inhabit." -- ibid.