The White House is about to issue a preliminary report on the wide range of challenges big data and targeting pose to existing laws and policy. There may be even more at stake than that: how we relate to one another.

Sony is working with targeting data company Pursway to connect social behavior with purchases, helping the brand understand the likelihood that a consumer will make a purchase based on the number of other Sony owners around them. Pursway's technology pinpoints a brand's key influencers and identifies customers with an affinity to its products, along with those whom they might have influenced through a relationship. "One or two people that someone knows can influence the products someone else buys," said Jeremy Lyons, senior manager at Sony USA.

My wife and I have seen the future of in-store proximity marketing -- and it is not enough. Targeting the act of buying only gets it half right. Shopping is also about envisioning how you will use the product.

The Seattle-based startup Blab wants to become the crystal ball of advertising. It created technology allowing brands to predict, with 70% accuracy, trending topics up to 72 hours in advance by analyzing social conversations.

If you simply count ads and attribute them to a purchasing channel then programmatic platforms had a very very good year in 2013, according to metrics firms Adomic.

Marketers concentrate on analyzing consumer behavior, but what part does the behavior of brand marketers play when they attempt to connect with existing and potential customers? Display and email adoption continues to increase, even as social and mobile becomes more popular, per a new study.

The early browsing results are in, and owners of Tesla's always connected car are spending an inordinate amount of time (you guessed it) checking that the economy and stocks that made their car affordable are still chugging along.

Nurturing existing customers may seem like a lost art, especially for small business owners. While most seem to focus on acquiring new customers rather than supporting those who keep coming back, data from a study on small business owners released Wednesday reveals many have begun to change their ways.

Google's animated short illustrating its handling of data warrant requests is troubling because it is cute. Government investigators become Blues Brothers, legal overreaching becomes a Lego gator, Google becomes Mom.