The Christmas Eve data dump from the National Security Agency reports on over a decade of incidents involving misuse of surveillance data within the NSA. It's a cautionary tale for everyone engaged in user data.

Like personal people meters, mobility is giving us insight into the modes in which consumers operate at a much granular level than ever before.

Many ecommerce systems don't work properly, making online commerce challenging for consumers. It also puts a burden on retailers and brands. The number of transaction "Card Not Present" declines stands at around 15%. In the U.S. this works out to approximately $40 billion in declined sales annually. Some transactions are blocked for various valid reasons. Nearly 3%, or $1.2 billion, are blocked due to invalid reasons. That 3% becomes costly, especially during the holiday season, per a recent study.

It turns out that men and women do not only exhibit distinct shopping styles in the store but also online. But wait, there's more. Even left-handedness correlates with statistically different interactions with Web sites.

Many times mobile apps are dead in the water even before consumers give them a try. Easy to download and often free, the app can sit in a consumer's smartphone unused until she realizes there's no longer a use and deletes it. YouAppi thinks it can change the statistic through technology it calls OneRun. The technology focuses on post-conversion performance and forecasts customer life-time value (LTV) for mobile. Finding the consumers who want to use the app isn't easy.

Email marketers are making more sophisticated use of data to anticipate their recipients' next move. Probabilistic modeling is telling brands when that email reader is likely to opt out -- or even engage more fully than the message invites.

Americans use the Internet to find health information, but not all information is considered reliable. Researchers Michael Paul, Ryen White and Eric Horvitz believe that understanding the information required during the course of an illness is a first step to enhance search and retrieval for people in need. In a Microsoft Research project, the three sought to study "the evolving and episodic nature of search in the context of breast cancer."

Mobile behaviors are subtle and sometime inscrutable. Just because people are leaning back and spending more time with their phones doesn't mean they are in the most receptive mood, for instance.

Sports fans have always been on the leading edge of mobile use. Targeting them effectively requires a deeper understanding of just how diverse and personal their mobile behaviors are.

Sentiment about wearable devices continues to improve. Some 17% of iPhone owners in September expressed intent to purchase a wearable device in the next 12 months, up from 6% in May 2014, per research from a consulting firm. This increase coincides with September's Apple Watch announcement. Since Apple consumers are typically some of the earliest adopters of new technologies, the increase in the smartwatch category reflects a strong likelihood Apple will see success of the Watch in its initial release early 2015. The company released its software development kit, WatchKit, for developers Tuesday.