Web aggregation has been available regionally for several years, but this service has not been offered globally. As an example, using multiple regional comparison aggregators, we analyze the global prices for a Sony camcorder, which differ by more than three times. We further explain that lack of global comparison aggregation services partially contribute to such huge price dispersion. We also discuss difficulties encountered in the manual integration of global web sources. Motivated by this example, we propose a context mediation architecture for global aggregation to address semantic disparities of global information sources. Global aggregation services can bring efficiency to the global market and can be useful for market research and other business uses. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

The development of web technology has led to the emergence of web aggregation, a service that collects existing web data and turns them into more useful information. We review the development of both comparison and relationship aggregation and discuss their impacts on various stakeholders. The aggregator’s capability of transparently extracting web data has raised challenging issues in database and privacy protection. Consequently, new regulations are introduced or being proposed. We analyze the interactions between aggregation and related policies and provide our insights about the implications of new policies on the development of web aggregation. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)