Online Privacy Abuses Will Ruin The Web

I'm a bit surprised at some of the people who have come out saying that they think the whole Facebook privacy issue is over blown (see here, here and here). For some it might be a matter of not caring about what they consider their mundane data and for others they might have concerns over the heavily reliance that many online businesses have on online advertising.

Truth is, marketers have always oversold online advertising targeting and tracking as the Webs holy grail. And let's face it, ad supported services have been at the heart of so many ‘free’ things that we take for granted.

I've blithered on (in four postings in the last week no less) about the privacy issues and potential abuses of people's data, so i won't beat that particular drum again. Let me come at this in a completely different way - as a marketer.

Peter and I wrote an article for strategy magazine a long time ago about why marketers and advertisers should be concerned about customers' online privacy. The premise? If we don't care, the legislators will.

When companies and agencies start to cross lines without any thoughts to their responsibilities as corporate citizens, the public starts to get nervous and starts to question if their personal freedoms are being trodden upon. When that happens, inevitably someone stands up and says, dang, we better make a law for this!

This is how the European privacy laws were created and similarly here in Canada with bill C-6. When we don't play nice, it's the governments job to try and make us. Do we really want that? Will they understand what things are about privacy and what things are just stupid? What things would protect people and what things would just ruin the Web?

In the end if we want to ensure a sustainable Web ecosystem that works for both people and business, we have to find the right balance between customers best interest and our own marketing self interest. And if we can't someone else will surely make us.

update: ..and when you thought it couldn't get worse, it does. So much for being able to just leave the service. Read this Facebook's Beacon Ad System Also Tracks Non-Facebook Users.

Social Activism 101 - Web 2.0 Style

It's ironic that a lot of the people who tout the principles of Web 2.0 have a tendency to forget one of the basic tenants...The power shift from companies to community.

Back in the day, my friend Jay, an campaigner at Greenpeace, took the power that the Web gave to the people and applied that to social activism. Thus in 1996, Fax the Feds was born. Thanks to our friends at Google, I even found a reference to it:

"Fax the Feds!. ...Fax your Federal MP Web Page Services. Keep your MP accountable! This is a FREE service to send your MP a fax message about any issue of concern. Within minutes, your message will appear as a printed fax in the MP's Ottawa office using a sophisticated web page engine."

Well, it seems as if our sophisticated web page engine has gotten even bigger and more powerful, thanks to the ever expanding edges of Web 2.0.

For some reason it heartens me that while some people think the Facebook concerns are an over-reaction, that in the end, it's the law of the network that prevails.

This isn't the first time (Sony root kit anyone?) and it won't be the last, but it's a great lesson to all those companies and organizations out there.....

Customers are more in control and connected than ever before and in the end it will be them that have the last word - social activism 101, Web 2.0 style.

So ignore, ignore, ignore – but remember if you choose to do so, you do so at your own peril.

Data Doesn't Kill People, People Kill People

From AVC's post Facebook and The Privacy Backlash this morning

"My point is that there is way more good to be done with this data than evil. I am happy when I see the beacon popping up on my screen these days"

Let me give a scenario:


- I go to Cuba in the winter because there are great cheap deals at Expedia.

- I buy a cute Che handbag and have pictures uploaded to Flikr with me and the bag

- I shop at Amazon and buy my nephew a bunch of philosophy books because that's what he's into these days. Marx is one of them.

- I write a blog post referencing the Dixie Chicks "Shut up and social network"

- I join a facebook group in support of Amnesty International.

- I twitter a comment that I saw The Daily Show last night and what an idiot Bush or an equivalent public figure is.

All pretty mundane stuff. As well, i've life streamed about a gazillion other things including my trip to Vegas, my purchase of cook books, joining the I love the Wii facebook group, twittering the weather, etc. Data. Who cares.

But wait, where there is data, there is filtering technology. And worse, there are people who can use those filters to pick and choose from your life stream to build a story of their own construction.

Remember this guy?


And if you think that was then, and this is now and it can't possibly happen in the US or Canada? Well it has as people like Mr. Arar can attest. And no one will think their being evil. It will all be done in the name of truth and justice.

If history tells us one thing, it's that data isn't evil, but people? That's another story all together.