You may not know a company called [x+1] Inc., but it may well know a lot about you.

From a single click on a web site, [x+1] correctly identified Carrie Isaac as a young Colorado Springs parent who lives on about $50,000 a year, shops at Wal-Mart and rents kids' videos. The company deduced that Paul Boulifard, a Nashville architect, is childless, likes to travel and buys used cars. And [x+1] determined that Thomas Burney, a Colorado building contractor, is a skier with a college degree and looks like he has good credit.

The company didn't get every detail correct. But its ability to make snap assessments of individuals is accurate enough that Capital One Financial Corp. uses [x+1]'s calculations to instantly decide which credit-card offers to show first-time visitors to its website.

In short: Websites are gaining the ability to decide whether or not you'd be a good customer, before you tell them a single thing about yourself.

The technology reaches beyond the personalization familiar on sites like Amazon.com, which uses its own in-house data on its customers to show them new items they might like. By contrast, firms like [x+1] tap into vast databases of people's online behavior -- mainly gathered surreptitiously by tracking technologies that have become ubiquitous on websites across the Internet. They don't have people's names, but cross-reference that data with records of home ownership, family income, marital status and favorite restaurants, among other things. Then, using statistical analysis, they start to make assumptions about the proclivities of individual Web surfers.

'We never don't know anything about someone,' says John Nardone, [x+1]'s chief executive.

Capital One says it doesn't use the full array of [x+1]'s targeting technology, and it doesn't prevent people from applying for any card they want. 'While we suggest products that we believe will be of interest to our visitors, we do not limit their ability to easily explore all products available,' spokeswoman Pam Girardo says.

A Wall Street Journal investigation into online privacy has found that the analytical skill of data handlers like [x+1] is transforming the Internet into a place where people are becoming anonymous in name only. The findings offer an early glimpse of a new, personalized Internet where sites have the ability to adjust many things -- look, content, prices -- based on the kind of person they think you are.

New York-based Demdex Inc., for instance, helps websites build 'behavioral data banks' that tap sources including online-browsing records, retail purchases and a database predicting a person's spot in a corporate hierarchy. It crunches the data to help retailers customize their sites to target the person they think is visiting.

'If we've identified a visitor as a midlife-crisis male,' says Demdex CEO Randy Nicolau, a client, such as an auto retailer, can 'give him a different experience than a young mother with a new family.' The guy sees a red convertible, the mom a minivan.

The technology raises the prospect that different visitors to a website could see different prices as well. Price discrimination is generally legal, so long as it's not based on race, gender or geography, which can be deemed 'redlining.'

In financial services, fair-lending laws prohibitdiscrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender, receipt of public assistance or marital status. The laws also require that borrowers have access to any data used to evaluate their creditworthiness.

But the law doesn't specifically bar using web-browsing history to make lending decisions. That means, in theory, a bank could deny a loan based on knowledge of the applicant's visits to, say, gambling sites. In such a case, however, the bank would be required to let the applicant see the browsing data and correct it if inaccurate.

Capital One says it doesn't use [x+1] or browsing history in lending decisions. Rather, it uses [x+1] to suggest offers to individuals.

The regulators who monitor fair lending at the Federal Trade Commission say suggesting offers isn't illegal. But it could violate the law if the suggestions result in protected groups such as minorities being steered into paying higher credit-card rates despite having solid credit.

'Steering can be a law violation depending on how they do it,' says Alice Hrdy, an assistantdirector at the FTC. 'Credit decisions have to be based on the customer's creditworthiness.'

Capital One spokeswoman Ms. Girardo says, 'Our practices are fully compliant with banking regulations and privacy laws.'

[x+1] says none of its credit-card services use gender, ethnicity or age data. It adds that the company doesn't have the names of the individuals it analyzes.

Emily Steel / Julia Angwin

• ability [ə´biliti] n.(办事)能力；才干 (初中英语单词)
• accurate [´ækjurət] a.准确的；精密的 (初中英语单词)
• financial [fi´nænʃəl] a.金融的，财政的 (初中英语单词)
• instantly [´instəntli] ad.立即，立刻 (初中英语单词)
• customer [´kʌstəmə] n.顾客，买主，主顾 (初中英语单词)
• contrast [´kɔntrɑ:st] n.对比 v.使对比(照) (初中英语单词)
• mainly [´meinli] ad.主要地；大体上 (初中英语单词)
• income [´inkʌm] n.收入，所得 (初中英语单词)
• analysis [ə´næləsis] n.分解；分析(结果) (初中英语单词)
• journal [´dʒə:nəl] n.日记；日报；杂志 (初中英语单词)
• investigation [in,vesti´geiʃən] n.调查(研究) (初中英语单词)
• glimpse [glimps] n.&v.瞥见 (初中英语单词)
• adjust [ə´dʒʌst] vt.调整；校准；使适应 (初中英语单词)
• instance [´instəns] n.例子，实例，例证 (初中英语单词)
• visitor [´vizitə] n.访问者；来宾；参观者 (初中英语单词)
• prospect [´prɔspekt, prəs´pekt] n.景色；境界 v.勘察 (初中英语单词)
• origin [´ɔridʒin] n.起源；由来；出身 (初中英语单词)
• receipt [ri´si:t] n.收到；收据 (初中英语单词)
• assistance [ə´sistəns] n.协作；援助；帮助 (初中英语单词)
• monitor [´mɔnitə] n.班长 v.监控；检查 (初中英语单词)
• federal [´fedərəl] a.联邦的，联邦制的 (初中英语单词)
• despite [di´spait] prep.尽管 (初中英语单词)
• assistant [ə´sistənt] n.助手；助理；助教 (初中英语单词)
• director [di´rektə] n.指导者；....长；导演 (初中英语单词)
• correctly [kə´rektli] ad.正确地；恰当地 (高中英语单词)
• colorado [,kɔlə´rɑ:dəu] n.科罗拉多(州) (高中英语单词)
• architect [´ɑ:kitekt] n.建筑师 (高中英语单词)
• behavior [bi´heiviə] n.举止，行为 (高中英语单词)
• explore [ik´splɔ:] v.勘探；探索；探查 (高中英语单词)
• client [´klaiənt] n.委托人；顾客 (高中英语单词)
• geography [dʒi´ɔgrəfi] n.地理(学) (高中英语单词)
• prohibit [prə´hibit] vt.禁止；阻止 (高中英语单词)
• access [´ækses] n.接近；通路；进入 (高中英语单词)
• applicant [´æplikənt] n.请求者；申请人 (高中英语单词)
• commission [kə´miʃən] n.委任(状) vt.委任 (高中英语单词)
• contractor [kən´træktə] n.订约人；收缩物 (英语四级单词)
• ownership [´əunəʃip] n.所有权；所有制 (英语四级单词)
• status [´steitəs] n.身份；情形；状况 (英语四级单词)
• privacy [´praivəsi, -pri] n.隐退；独处；秘密 (英语四级单词)
• retail [´ri:teil, ri´teil] n.&a.&v.零售(商品的) (英语四级单词)
• violate [´vaiəleit] vt.违背；冒犯；侵害 (英语四级单词)
• violation [,vaiə´leiʃən] n.破坏；冒犯；侵害 (英语四级单词)
• banking [´bæŋkiŋ] n.银行业 (英语四级单词)
• anonymous [ə´nɔniməs] a.不具名的；匿名的 (英语六级单词)
• discrimination [di,skrimi´neiʃən] n.区别，歧视 (英语六级单词)
• illegal [i´li:gəl] a.不合法的，非法的 (英语六级单词)