By John Berard
In yet another prescription for what ails us, the U.S. Department of Commerce has proposed a consumer "bill of rights" when it comes to advertising and protecting our privacy online.
The idea seems to have merit, but ignores the single biggest step business can take to bring privacy and data collection practices into balance: making the case for their value to consumers.
Targeting consumers with ads of personal interest is a time honored tradition. Linked to content (why was the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue always the fattest?) or the demographics of a zip code (BMWs in Buckhead) or affinity (fly United, get a discount from Hertz), our personal preferences have long been of great interest to advertisers.
I once had a pal who wistfully said he’d love to live in the world created by the ads in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. But now something is different.
That "something" is the ability of digital technology to track and assemble a dossier that can make each of us to wonder, as Rick did in Casablanca, "Are my eyes really brown?"
In a hyper-competitive market, the ability to know all that can be known about consumers in the hope of better guessing their interests has driven companies to aggressively invest in new and more intrusive technology.
This is the race Commerce seeks to make fairer. In recent weeks, the Federal Trade Commission has issued its own suggestions, including support for a "do not track" database akin to the successful "do not call" program aimed at telemarketers who call at dinner time.
But a technology arms race will not get us – consumers, business and government – where we need to go. Imagine creating a "do not track" list. It would be the single biggest database of personally identifiable information ever created and become, in a stroke, a target rich environment for hackers and identity thieves. Solutions shouldn’t create bigger problems.
Fifteen years ago, companies understood the need to create consumer trust in the new technology of the Internet. Using the principles of self-governance, groups like TRUSTe set parameters for data collection and use that were made clear to consumers. Soon after, many companies organized again around the International Association of Privacy Professionals to drive a set of best practices.
We are now at a similar fork in the road.
The Internet has moved off the desktop to our mobile devices. The Web is no longer a set of static pages, but a dynamic social network. And consumers have become aware that there are people shadowing us online everywhere we go. We don’t like it. We want it stopped, primarily because we don’t see the value in it. This is industry’s opening.
Legislation and regulation are blunt instruments that have not shown an ability to keep up with the pace of technology innovation. The commitments of self-governance are more palliative than cure. A better approach is to demystify why the data is collected in the first place and making its benefit clear to consumers.
In negotiating such a compact with consumers, companies can make privacy an element of competitive advantage. Saying it’s "too hard" or that "no one else does it" won’t cut it. One need look no further than Amazon.com to see the practice and results.
Every time a customer logs onto Amazon.com, the site offers up recommendations. This is nothing more than the product of the kind of tracking and tracing done elsewhere, but on Amazon, we see the benefit. Amazon does, too. Fortune ranks it the fifth most respected company on the planet.
Who’s next?
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John Berard heads San Francisco-based Credible Context. He is the former CEO of advertising software start-up Rabio Corporation and previously ran the West Coast offices and operations for Fleishman-Hillard, FitzGerald Communications and Zeno Group. |