I think that we have to move to a model where each individual fully controls their data, and allows organizations to use it on a permission basis. I just don't think that is going to happen for some time. It's a lot of work to manage one's own data footprint, and there are no obvious good tools to help the individual right now. All the brainpower is going into technology driven and developed by the companies who want to use it for marketing and revenue.
There are certainly enough reasons for us to take more control. There are mistakes and disgusting events like Mike Seay's junk mail referencing his killed daughter and the celebrity nude photos. Then, there are various worms hacking our accounts occur every few months. And, of course the Snowden revelations which continue to unearth more about our own government's powers of reach and espionage.
But, it's likely going to have to be yet more disturbing and threatening events that finally have us change behaviour more aggressively and willing to pay for tools that protect and empower us.
Mike Seay Gets OfficeMax Junk
Mail Referencing Daughter Killed In Car Crash (PHOTO):
Gawker's automobile news and gossip site Jalopnik noted that while news of
Ashley's death was public information (and widely-reported in Chicagoland last
year), the fact that the info made its way onto a piece of junk mail serves as
"a cruel reminder of how personal information is sold bought and sold for
marketing purposes today."
5 Things to know about the celeb nude photo scandal - CNN.com: A hacker's invasion of dozens of celebrity iCloud accounts, leading to the embarrassing leaking of nude photos, has lessons for us all.
From HBR 2001...Personalization? No Thanks. - Harvard Business Review According
to our survey, privacy concerns are the leading reason consumers withhold
information from sites. We also found that users were more willing to provide
information when they were customizing a site than when they knew the data
would be used for personalization features.
From HBR 2014…Pushing the Limits of Personalization - Harvard Business
Review: This admission from a man who built his business on data
mining suggests that something other than apathy is at work here: consumer
ignorance. Why else would companies work so hard to obfuscate their data
practices, bury their ownership claims in byzantine Terms of Service, or make
opting out difficult or dependent on losing other features? If consumers knew
exactly what they were ceding, I think they’d opt out just as Rudder has.
The problem isn’t just companies’ own data collection; it’s their
growing capacity to mine outside sources—some of which they buy, and some of
which are just “out there”—to build detailed consumer profiles.
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