Browsers Getting to Know You, Quickly

In Radar O'Reilly: A description of the interaction between user and browser.  And a form of real time analytics at work.  The auction interaction is interesting, see the tag below for more on auction science in this blog.  The speed involved is remarkable.  " ... A small technological marvel occurs on almost every visit to a web page. In the seconds that elapse between the user’s click and the display of the page, an ad auction takes place in which hundreds of bidders gather whatever information they can get on the user, determine which ads are likely to be of interest, place bids, and transmit the winning ad to be placed in the page. ... " .