The Wonderful World of Privacy. Post 1.

Thus begins my series of posts on the issues of Internet privacy as they relate to digital marketing.

So, here's my disclaimer. This is a blog not a court record or peer reviewed study. I am not a journalist, software engineer, or a media pundit. I am also not a BT "expert" though I do know more about it, how it works, and it's value to marketers than the average ad or marketing person.

And BTW, if you know that I got something wrong please leave a comment so I can correct the record. Because like the song says, I'm doing my best, but sometimes my best ain't good enough...

I am writing this because it is important for all digital marketers to understand privacy because it is a fundamental consideration in any digital marketing, not just BT. this stuff is not easy peasy. And it is rarely described in plain English. But I am gonna try.

All of us need to understand the techniques that are used to gather information online, so we can make informed decisions about the vehicles we choose to support. I am going to try to state facts rather than opinion, though this will be a profound challenge.

All of us would probably say yes if asked about whether we think privacy is important. But what the Hell does that mean?

I've done a lot of reading about privacy over the last couple of days, and the general consensus seems to be that privacy and communication are the teeter totter of user experience.

When we talk about privacy, most of us think about personally identifiable information, meaning the sort of info that directly identifies us as specific individuals and associates things with our identities. And all of us make decisions every day, if we use the Internet, about whether we are willing to share PII -- meaning we evaluate whether the utility of a digital experience is worth the effort and consequences of sharing the info.

What do I mean by that? Well, most of the people reading this blog are on Facebook. And we reveal to our friends, and to Facebook, details about who we are, what we think, what we do, and how we live. We assume that the Facebook people will protect our PII, and that the consequences of our sharing are worth it. This is the major issue that now haunts people who have ever posted a photo of themselves blind drunk on their profile, because companies can see this. Prospective employers, insurance companies, whomever.

We assume that Facebook is safe because it is Facebook. Many of us would be unlikely to share as much with a site we have never heard of, or with a .RU URL.

Now, suppose you find a cool digital marketing news site that requires that you join to view. Do you go to the trouble of joining, and do you make the decision to trust the site with the PII? You decide.

The ethics involved in being marketers as we ask consumers to make these daily sets of choices assumes two things:

1. That consuemrs are reasonable judges of what is safe and what isn't.

2. That we are actually given a choice or are aware that we have a choice. For example, do the users of a discount ISP know that in some cases they are ceding control of their personal info in exchange for $6 access?

It's right there in the user agreement they don't read. And what's interesting is that most of us assume that all user agreements are pretty much the same, or that we hope that reasonable protections are offered.

By the way, these agreements are emphatically NOT the same. NOT AT ALL. There are enormous difference. Check out Ask's (very respectful of privacy) versus Google's (not as respectful.)

Again, I think if each of us were asked about our POV on fastidiously enabling user choice, we'd say we are for it. But I need only remind you that until standards were set, most websites required OPT OUT to avoid newsletters rather than OPT IN to get them. And we all know that the reason for this was the hope that we'd get more names that way, and that lots of those people wouldn't have opted in if the choice had been expressed that way. That process was a usurpation of choice in spirit if not quite in fact.

The fact is, there are unscrupulous companies not acting ethically every day online. And there are other companies who don't really consider the ethical aspects of what they are doing. And there are companies that emphatically are acting in consistently ethical ways. It's a mishmash.

But before everyone shuts off their PC in fear, recognize that those choices and tradeoffs (ceding privacy for utility of some form) are a fact of life in many many areas, not just the web. Direct mail companies are routinely sharing your name, address, and buying habits with one another. If you live in London, once you set foot outside you're probably being filmed by at least one camera all day long. This level of surveillance was begin as a response to the Irish Troubles and acts of terrorism. And many find that an acceptable tradeoff for not being Sarined on the Tube. But it is a tradeoff.

The point of this post is to set up the idea that the issue of privacy is fraught with those teeter totter tradeoff situations. Exchanging privacy for value. Assuming you are given the right to choose. But more on that a little later.

Anyway. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.