I was just talking to a friend whose company do a lot of data mining on their user data. After I explained VRM, he responded that they follow something similar - the 'data jujitsu' principles developed by DJ Patil. After looking through his O'Reilly book there are certainly some very VRM-y concepts involved, albeit from a product development point of view. For example:
- 'Give data back to the user to create additional value' - in other words, the midata/mydata principle
- 'Ask and you shall receive' - which re-iterates that volunteered personal information is generally higher quality, more actionable, and less creepy.
I'm not sure if Patil is aware of VRM - if not, I guess it shows these ideas are gaining traction independently. In any case, his introduction to Data Jujitsu can be found at
http://web.stanford.edu/group/mmds/slides2012/s-patil2.pdf