Preferences

A preferences filter enables a consumer to specify what information s/he wishes to view and in what order in each case. Having scanned the RFID's of the products available in a particular store, the consumer would like to filter these before attempting to select from them.

For example:

• I want to filter products/services by supplier's eco-region, so I may shop locally.
• I want to select from among the more ecologically safe, more socially moral products.
• I want to see only products/services that are approved by any two of my trusted auditor's.

There is a problem of keeping consumer personal preferences safe. Proposed ideas have included:

• Store the data encrypted and give the key only to the consumer. This way the data persists in the network and can be made available for server side processing (quite necessary for plain XHTML UI) and disposed of after the consumer has left the network.
• Store the data within the Consumer Agent residing in the consumers personal mobile terminal. The consumer agent can then give snipplets of the preferences and other data to the network on a on-demand basis.
• Store the data on a smart card carried by the consumer, and available to him on demand anywhere.