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We can’t talk about marketing predictions today without referencing data. 2021 is the year where companies need to own as much of their own data as they can, because in 2022, Google has made it clear that the ability to use cookies and target consumers based on third-party data is going away. You want to target your audience in 2022? You need to own the data you need or have direct access to it, and you have one year to get your data act together.
Cindy Cohn, executive director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF: “I think the question is who controls your data. You already own your data most of the time in terms of some kind of a version of ownership, but often you don’t control it because you click it away in that clickwrap moment for most of the services that you use. So it doesn’t matter, the ownership is not making a difference, whether it’s there or it’s not, if you can just click it away.”
Clickwrap refers to the terms and conditions that act as a gatekeeper for most modern websites and services. Signing up for a service, such as Facebook or PayPal, requires agreeing to pages and pages of text, often consisting of confusing legal jargon. Not agreeing to the terms as-stated generally means not using the service or website.
“Controlling your data means that we can put it beyond the scope of a simple clickwrap agreement, and we can say that there are some situations in which your control just cannot be rested from you, it can’t be taken from you. Sometimes maybe not at all, but certainly not with a clickwrap kind of agreement.”
Start with the individual. It is seductive to argue that each person should have ownership rights over their data. Yet unless laws change radically, in practice it is hard to wrest control back from the tech platforms, because an individual’s bargaining power is woefully weak. Fortunately, other options are surfacing.
One is a subscription model, along the lines of Netflix or Spotify. Another option is to start gathering data on behalf of the individual from all sorts of sources. Inrupt, for instance, is working with the government of Flanders, a region of Belgium, to give every citizen a “pod” to store personal data. It hopes private firms will build user-friendly apps around the data, with people’s consent, says John Bruce, its co-founder. The better the apps, the more eager people will be to furnish it with their data. In India something similar is happening in financial services. Individuals’ and firms’ financial data can be transferred to financial-services firms via “account aggregators” that obtain the owners’ consent. This can help speed up credit-scoring and loan underwriting. It could also be an alternative to huge data guzzlers such as Ant Financial, a Chinese fintech firm.
"Driven by fear and also a deep hope for a brighter future, people everywhere began to undertake a new process, to reimagine our social contract -- the basic expectations between business, government and civil society for a new digital age," said Don Tapscott, co-founder and executive chairman of the Blockchain Research Institute. The six principles were: - Inclusive models of global problem-solving.
- Rethinking democracy for citizen engagement.
- A new commitment to justice.
- New models of work and education.
- New models of identity.
- A commitment to sustainability
The pandemic has a lot to do with data or lack thereof. An example is health data. Data is captured in silos. We do not own the data. Data cannot be aggregated across all of our individual identities. "Let's move away from the industrial-age system of stamps, seals, and signatures we depend on to this day. We need to protect the security of personhood and end the systems of economic exclusion and digital feudalism. Individuals should own and profit from the data they create from the moment of their birth," said Tapscott.
Data ownership and access is a key success factor in the new digital age. We must be able to use our data to plan our lives. Tapscott talked about how we can use blockchain to create a self-sovereign and portable identity.
Customers are used to giving up their data to companies, with the expectation that it will be used to provide them with value, whether that takes the form of special offers, discounts, recommendations and the like. But even as these tactics evolve into hyper-personalization, some companies are better at delivering that reciprocal value than others.
While today’s customers understand the trade-offs inherent in giving their data to companies in return for value, the relationship can quickly sour and trust can quickly be broken if data’s used in a way the customer didn’t consent to.
The more personalized the experience, the more transparent you must be about how and why you’re collecting their data and what you’ll use it for.
Consumers are taking more control of their personal data, and it is beholden on businesses to give them the tools they need to do that. Blaine Carter, Chief Information Security Officer of Franklin Covey, said that privacy and consent have become product differentiators. “We’ve seen that with Franklin Covey. We’ve seen a lot of customers who do want to feel like they can trust you with their information.”
Trust, consent, and a genuine value exchange sit at the heart of the new relationship between buyer and seller, he said. “When we’re talking about value exchange, we started rolling out features where we’re very honest and upfront with how we offer value in exchange for personal information.”
In the past, he said, it would have been rare for him to meet with the Chief Marketing Officer. Marketing always seemed to be too busy to meet with Information Security. Together, Marketing and Information Security understood that they really needed to be honest and upfront with how they were gathering information, as well as what kind of choices needed to be made.
With Google’s latest decision to strip Search Terms data insights from advertisers (some agencies have reported around 25%-30% or more of data loss), the frustrated outcry has caused some to begin throwing around lawsuit language.
Specifically, there seem to be three main reactions to this change:
Those who believe that advertisers own the data outright, or at least the data is part of what they are paying for, and thus have every right to all data. These are the most likely to be outraged, as they believe their rights have been stripped away with decisions such as this. Those who believe Google (or the platform) owns the data, and that advertisers are simply playing within the elected program. These are the most likely to ignore the recent hubbub (or even this article!) and simply believe that advertisers should roll with the changes. Those somewhere in the middle. They may not have a hard and fast opinion on who does or does not own the data, but they also believe that advertisers do have certain rights and the platform cannot simply do what it wants without potential legal ramifications or oversight.
A new consensus is emerging about the value of data. It carries immense potential in supporting analytics, personalization and other imperatives. Today’s consumers, especially younger individuals, increasingly expect products and services tailored to their needs. One survey found that 70% of customers say understanding how they use products and services is very important to winning their business. In fact, data is becoming so important that in many ways it can be considered an emerging currency.
As new data privacy laws emerge and people become more aware about the use and value of their data, the responsibilities of data collectors are increasing. Fundamental to the value of data is maintaining its security and integrity. Implementing proactive security measures such as public key infrastructure (PKI) can be a crucial foundation to safeguard data. PKI uses digital certificates to encrypt data in transit; authenticate devices to users, servers and other devices; and ensure that only authorized and signed code runs on the device to prevent malware and other attacks. PKI helps identify users and their devices to provide important protection.
Looking beyond technology, transparency is another key responsibility. Consumers must remain informed and demand greater transparency into how their data is being used. Businesses and manufacturers should build security and transparent collection of data into their practices. At the same time, companies should inform their customers of the processes used to keep them safe. Together, businesses and the consumers they serve can succeed in protecting the confidentiality and integrity of data, as it becomes more valuable in our dynamic, data-driven world.
By 2023, 65% of the world’s population will have its personal data covered under modern privacy regulations, up from 10% in 2020, according to Gartner, Inc. “Security and risk management (SRM) leaders need to help their organization adapt their personal data handling practices without exposing the business to loss through fines or reputational damages.”
SRM leaders should adopt key capabilities that support increasing volume, variety and velocity of personal data by putting in place a three-stage technology-enabled privacy program: establish, maintain and evolve.
The establish stage includes foundational capabilities of a privacy management program. The maintain stage allows organizations to scale their privacy management programs. The evolve stage includes specialist tools that focus on reducing privacy risk with little or no impact on the data utility.
Currently, consumers feel duped or intentionally kept in the dark by companies who use their data: 89% of US consumers think companies are deliberately vague about how the “data for benefit” exchange really works, according to 2019 findings from Wunderman Thompson Data.
Consumers are clamoring for agency over how their info used—and part of that agency includes an assessment of their data’s worth. This is spurring a new value exchange—one that operates with data as the primary currency.
As the data economy develops, brands will need to give consumers a clear and fair appraisal of their info.
"The decision to kill off third-party cookies is widely regarded as a necessary evil, but who gets to determine their replacement? The uncertainty has prompted some companies to develop turnkey solutions that are privacy compliant. Google—whose decision to eliminate third-party cookies from Chrome by 2022 created the vacuum—also has a solution, as does ad retargeting kingpin Criteo. Whichever technology emerges, it will address critical advertiser capabilities including ad targeting, frequency capping, user privacy and attribution. And it will enable an enormous advertising market; last year, third-party cookies helped fuel nearly 30 percent, or $38 billion, of all U.S. digital ad spend."
I outline four steps that could help organizations maximize their data assets for public good: 1) Develop methodologies to measure the value of data. 2) Develop structures to incentivize collaboration. 3) Encourage data collaboratives. Data collaboratives are an emerging form of public-private partnership that enable sharing and co-creation of value. Data sharing must not become a vehicle for privacy violations or other risks to individual rights. Building trust is essential to fostering the benefits of sharing; it is therefore critical that strong privacy protections (e.g., in the form of anonymized, aggregated data) are built into the structure and governance of data collaboratives. 4) Identify and nurture data stewards. Data stewards are individuals or teams tasked with proactively initiating, facilitating, and coordinating sharing across organizations and sectors, with the goal of maximizing both the private monetary and public value of data assets.
evervault is the Dublin-based internet infrastructure company founded by Shane Curran. It has closed a $16 million Series A investment round led by Index Ventures. Existing partners Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Frontline Ventures also participated — alongside angel investors including Dylan Field (CEO, Figma), Kevin Hartz (co-founder, Eventbrite), Olivier Pomel (CEO, Datadog) and Alex Stamos (former Chief Security Officer, Facebook). The new investment takes the total raised by the company to over $19m.
evervault is building the API for data privacy. The core API functionality is privacy cages, which empower developers to process highly sensitive data in a fundamentally new and better way which is simple, scalable and privacy-preserving. evervault allows companies to focus on doing what they do best: building their product.
Despite the wheels being set in motion when it comes to building a data-centric businesses, it would not be outlandish to say that brands might struggle to fully achieve this due to ongoing shortages of data skills across the marketing industry as a whole.
Almost half of UK CMOs (45%) estimate poor data handling risks costing their business between £250,000 and £5m everyyear
Only 27% of CMOs say the industry is 'ahead of the game’ with having the skills needed to deal with customer data privacy
Almost three in four (74%) people are more concerned about the privacy of their personal information compared to this time two years ago
Over half (55%) of CMOs believe they are tapping into just 40% or less of their first-party data’s potential.
This paper explores the challenges brands need to overcome in order to manage data more effectively and build consumer trust, at a time when consumers are hugely concerned about privacy.
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Owning it is problematic. Enabling your consumers to own it, then asking their permission to use it in exchange for a reward is the path to take. Watch for this approach to go mainstream.
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