Our misplaced notion of privacy (or, why social media has a major perception problem).

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Why is targeted advertising perceived to be a bad thing? The real issue is over our misplaced notion of privacy on the web; the real debate is over control, not privacy. Facebook: Let me make my entire profile public; vendors: let me give you more information about me.

Eliot Van Buskirk in Wired, Your Facebook Profile Makes Marketers’ Dreams Come True”:

Social networking feels free, but we pay for it in ways that may not be readily apparent.

The rich personal data many of us enter into these networks is a treasure trove for marketers whose job it is to target us with ever-increasing precision.

Should that really be a surprise anymore?

More importantly, why is better targeting a bad thing?

In the absence of popularly adopted tools for vendor relationship management (VRM), what if I want to use social media (i.e. the web) to publicly declare things I want to buy?

Wouldn’t I be happy if a company actually followed up with me with exactly what I wanted? I mean, I told everybody (and yet, oddly, nobody) that’s what I want. Worst case, wouldn’t I prefer to get adverts for things I may actually want instead of things that are guaranteed to annoy me?

I want more targeting, not less; I have little objection to the idea of aggregating and structuring data about me to target advertising to me; but as usual, it all comes down to how it’s executed. If all that happens is I get a few more advertisements about cameras and baseball, that’s fine with me (but also pretty limited thinking by marketers); in any case that’s better than getting adverts for the dredge that makes it through spam filters and AdBlock. Better yet: take that richer knowledge about me as an input to develop and deliver on the promise of “relationship marketing”.

“There are huge privacy concerns for social network sites,” said Rotenberg [Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center]. “… The new kind of advertising, which is what happens when Facebook provides an API that allows advertisers to scrape the data stream and news feeds of individual users — that’s a whole new development, with some privacy dimensions. I don’t think users expect that their news feed is going to be used by marketers.”

Wait, after all the furors over Facebook’s terms of service, Beacon, et. al., shouldn’t we have caught on? Seriously. The login page to Facebook might be the biggest contributor on the web to this mistaken notion of online privacy.

Really, it shouldn’t be hard to imagine data about our online actions being aggregated and structured, we’re not stupid; the real issue is that we just don’t have a real reason to care (yet). The issue isn’t about privacy, it’s about control.

Vendors: give me a way to give better data to you, to have more control over our “relationship” and to scale that across multiple vendors, and I’ll give you even more data about me.

Better yet, Facebook: let me make my entire profile public. Seriously. Nothing would stop people more from posting information they think is private (but isn’t) than by owning up to reality and making everything public.

Tight networks don’t exist on the web; tight networks don’t operate by web economics; give up on the notion of online tight networks and use the web to maximize the power of loose connections.

That’s something I can care about.

(link via Aaron Chua | @aaronchua)

Posted April 30th, 2009 in Marketing with Context, Structuring Conversations to Enhance Serendipity. Tags: advertising, facebook, marketing, privacy, structured data, targeting. View Comments

SIMILAR THOUGHTS

Hello, I'm Taylor Davidson.

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http://ac-idealog.blogspot.com Aaronchua

What do you think of the idea: vendor as a connector of people? By knowing who you are , can the vendor recommends and links its community members to you so that there can be richer discussions on the areas you need help on? Sort of like MrTweet + GetSatisfaction.
http://www.unstructuredventures.com/uv Taylor Davidson

Depends on what the vendor is selling behind the connections

Seriously, big difference between a vendor that is making a market by connecting people with each other than a vendor that is making a market by connecting people to goods and services.

Honestly I think “vendor as a connector of people” is what many companies already attempt to create around their products and services, by creating a passionate fan base and bringing them together, either explicitly through a community-building device, or implicitly through communicating a shared purpose or ideal. Examples: SAP Developer Network, Apple's cult (and app store), any open-source development community, Dell IdeaStorm, NAU's Thought Kitchen blog and products, any company that sponsors and contributes to a Ning group (or similar) around a product or service of theirs, etc…
http://www.ethanbauley.com Ethan Bauley

good idea, or rather “frame of thinking”
http://thmvmnt.com Patrick Keenan

Agree, openness is the best defence against privacy infringement.
http://brooksjordan.name brooksjordan

Love this post.

And this line:

“I want more targeting, not less; I have little objection to the idea of aggregating and structuring data about me to target advertising to me; but as usual, it all comes down to how it’s executed.”
http://www.unstructuredventures.com/uv Taylor Davidson

I once wrote, kinda cheekily, that “The only way to hide online is in plain sight.”; but the bigger issue: our personal privacy is less about my ability to control what I say, share or give away, but more about my ability to control / manage / mediate what other people say.

Facebook's system (technological and cultural) creates a false perception of privacy, and since my personal privacy is more dependent on what other people say than by what I say, I lose my ability to detach and am forced to participate; if the culture doesn't change to recognize the perception of reality is misguided, then the technology should change to make it obvious.
http://www.unstructuredventures.com/uv Taylor Davidson

Thanks; and on a second read that's an oddly phrased sentence, but I'm glad you understood it
http://thmvmnt.com Patrick Keenan

Agree, openness is the best defence against privacy infringement.
http://brooksjordan.name brooksjordan

Love this post.rnrnAnd this line:rnrn”I want more targeting, not less; I have little objection to the idea of aggregating and structuring data about me to target advertising to me; but as usual, it all comes down to how itu2019s executed.”
http://www.taylordavidson.com/writing/ Taylor Davidson

I once wrote, kinda cheekily, that “The only way to hide online is in plain sight.”; but the bigger issue: our personal privacy is less about my ability to control what I say, share or give away, but more about my ability to control / manage / mediate what other people say.rnrnFacebook’s system (technological and cultural) creates a false perception of privacy, and since my personal privacy is more dependent on what other people say than by what I say, I lose my ability to detach and am forced to participate; if the culture doesn’t change to recognize the perception of reality is misguided, then the technology should change to make it obvious.
http://www.taylordavidson.com/writing/ Taylor Davidson

Thanks; and on a second read that’s an oddly phrased sentence, but I’m glad you understood it
http://www.taylordavidson.com/writing/2009/06/29/privacy-is-a-cultural-context-not-an-immutable-law/ Privacy is a cultural context, not an immutable law. | Taylor Davidson

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