Beware a Public Debate About Data Privacy

[Commentary] The ready availability of data that consumers volunteer about themselves underpins many of next year's marketing plans. We should be prepared that it will not remain so readily available in 2014.

Our ability to watch, record, analyze and apply insights into consumer behavior and intent would make a mind-reader blush. Big data has changed the way we envision the very function of marketing, moving us away from trying to imagine what consumers want to focus on to what we know they will need and do. Data's ready availability -- especially online -- is what's driving the wildly optimistic monetization plans for social-media platforms. We don't explain how we're using their data; we obfuscate what we do say with lots of buzzwords and then point to the fact that confused consumers aren't opting out as proof they don't care. If they ever figured out what giving away all the free information about themselves gets them, even the most publicly exposed millennial might think otherwise. A number of events could precipitate this debate in 2014. The Federal Trade Commission's hearings on online ads aside, it recently issued a finding against an app that surreptitiously shared user data. There will be more regulation like this, especially if the industry continues to believe its own hype. More data breeches are likely, and having your credit card and password shared instead of pictures of your dog is a surefire way to make a distant issue into an immediate problem. Facebook, Twitter and the like are going to invent more clever ways to exploit consumer data, as if to dare people to pay more attention, and every Ed Snowden revelation about surveillance will prompt people to think about data privacy.

[Jonathan Salem Baskin is managing director of Consensiv, a reputation consultancy]

[Jan 2]