Customer Data and Privacy: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review. HBR is providing a good series of article addressing how your data is collected and the impact upon your privacy.
For some, this may be rather jarring. Nevertheless, how did Facebook generate $116 Billion in revenue in 2022? Accordingly the sale of ads on Facebook is…. you. Yes, in fact you are what Facebook is selling.
It would also be fair to understand the role of Machine Learning coupled with Data Science that created this revenue stream. Facebook is collecting every ‘Like’ you make, every photo uploaded is scanned with facial recognition and every article posted is data mined.
Add this all up and Facebook is literally sitting on overwhelmingly vast amounts of user data. To their credit, Facebook has become the champion of mining profits from all the data they have about you.
Yet are these companies also building trust with you? They know everything about you, and when combined with ‘free’ apps, the tracking continues. We are aware of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Yet for everyone not living in California, there is a real lack of regulation. This allows companies to remain in control of you.
Learn the principals
Do you receive a monthly check from Facebook, Discord, YouTube, or any other social media company for your cut of their profits? Of course not. In order to please their respective stakeholders, how do companies balance what is best for their customers….you?
Imagine you’re a parent taking your teenage daughter to a beach volleyball training session. As you’re getting ready to leave the house, you ask Alexa about the weather. You punch the address into Google Maps to check traffic conditions; your Tesla Model 3 knows where you’re going and who’s driving. En route, license plate scanners assess tolls and track your progress. On arrival, you pay for street parking with the ParkMobile app and use the Starbucks app to pick up coffee. You’re not even two hours into a Saturday morning and already Amazon, Google, Tesla, the local government, AT&T, a parking app provider, Starbucks, Apple, and a payment provider know where you are and what you’re up to. And that’s before any of them sell your information to data brokers.
pgs. 23-24.
It is critical you understand how the world profits off of your data.
Perhaps the best example of Facebook’s exploitation of user data is Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang’s book An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination:
In addition, this is further the basis of Tim Wu’s excellent book The Attention Merchants:
The lessons can help organizations develop more effective data strategies. Follow the advice and watch your efforts result in becoming a good data steward. Understanding how to collect and use customer data. And following the message of this book store and monetize your customer’s data responsibly. this is not a perfect solution. The amount of inaccurate data is resulting in all of us seeing inaccurate ads and messages. This certainly has a downstream impact upon brands who purchased targeted data from Data Brokers.
Chapter 8: How blockchain can help marketers build better relationships with their customers is a worthy look at a promising technology still many years away from mainstream deployments. The goal of ending Google and Facebook’s duopoly in online advertising is certainly a good aim for consumers.
So, is your organization ready ?
In conclusion, Customer Data and Privacy is a must read for any organization and every consumer engaging the internet on a computer and mobile phone. A brief overview of a complex process, but worthy of your time.