Privacy in the Digital Marketing Age

One of my Professors once said: in this internet era, privacy is dead.

Indeed, it seems that out of all the people who live in this world, the second person who knows us well besides ourselves is Google, or Apple if you are a 100% iPerson. Today it is almost a norm that wherever we go on the internet, we are surrounded by advertisements, and these are not just any ad, very often these ads would show products we just browsed, recently purchased, or even something related to what we just searched. Sometimes it almost feels like we have been followed everywhere we go, except that not many people know who are following them. When we were discussing retargeting in class, most of the responses from students concentrated on one word: “creepy”. Yep indeed, it is just not normal to realize that there seems to be some eyes behind our back when we browse the internet, it annoys people so much that some browser plug-ins were born just to clear up your trace when browsing.

But do people really always resent the idea that their privacy is not protected on the web? Well, maybe it is too soon jumping to the conclusion. After all, it appears that we all trade in our privacy for some service. Gmail, Facebook, Android, iPad to some extent they exists for free because we are actually paying with our personal information, which was in turn used by companies to improve their advertisement targeting. The question is, though, is this healthy?

A group of Marketing researcher did an interesting experiment in Shanghai. Since the mobile phone service carriers in China have the right to push commercial text messages to users, it appeared to be one of the few places where we could test how much people accept the idea of targeted ads without been annoyed. The researchers developed a geo-fencing system combined with store sales data in certain shopping malls. Then, when they detect someone walking into the “fence”, who have shopped in the store before but have not returned for long, the mobile network would push out a message saying: “Hi Mr/Mrs.X, YYY stores thanks for your earlier purchase with us. As a gratitude to our loyal customers, here is a 20% off discount if you make a purchase within these three days.” Since cellphones are very personal device, you would expect a lot of people complain about this type of spam messages. To the researchers’ surprise, not so many people complained. Rather, a fair amount of them actually did revisit the store and made another purchase. There were no indications that they feel offended whatsoever! If they are so comfortable with targeted text message pushed to such a personal device they have, does it really make sense that they would complain about targeted ads on their browser which is arguably less personal than the cellphone? The result seems puzzling in explaining human rationale.

Perhaps this new era with targeted ads synced with every service would push people to adapt and live with them. It is hard to say what would become the future, are we all going to accept this as a norm? Well, there is certainly a possibility for that. At least from the study result, it seems that people can comfortably accept targeted ads when they really bring values or convenience to them. If the same can be applied to online advertisements, then it would not mean that people hate targeted ads in general, but only mean that the current targeting method is way too naive to figure out what people really want. With the advance of big data and marketing analytic models, maybe we would see the day come when the targeted ads can really bring the “just right” product to the exact consumer. Isn’t that what marketing is about?

It may sound controversial, but what the professor summarized may very well be the reality of the future: perhaps it is time for us to forget about all the privacy complains, and embrace the advances in technology that would eventually bring us the most efficient communication between firms and consumers.

Twitter is taking a page out of Facebook and Google's playbook

According to Business Insider, Twitter will soon be changing its terms of service so that it can monitor the other apps that users have on their phones. There are major privacy and user experience issues that arise with this new policy. Ultimately, it comes down to a universal technology dilemma: How much control will we give technology to improve how it serves us?

Twitter contests that it can make better products and better understands the needs of its customer by being able to track what apps its users are also interacting with; however, Twitter won't have access to the actual content that user access in other apps. Twitter makes the case that other technology companies such as Facebook and Google already have much more access to user data; in fact, Facebook has started to replicate Google's search model where users remain within the Facebook app when they access outside content.

Obviously, Twitter believes it needs to keep up with these other tech behemoths to predict what is "the next big thing". While this can be a great development for small upstarts looking to be acquired, it also presents an unfair advantage given that Twitter and Facebook have the ability to quickly replicate services and products it deems to be threats.

Do you want to keep your messages private? WhatsApp them!

We all use some kind of instant messaging and most of us know that somewhere, somehow, someone other our intended recipient might read our messages. This bothers at least some of us. Recent developments at WhatsApp, however, may make all of us relax a bit more about privacy.

The Android version of popular messaging app WhatsApp now supports end-to-end encryption, thanks to a partnership with secure-messaging developer Open Whisper Systems. Now, when Android users of the app message each other, the messages are encrypted before they leave the user's smartphone, and only decrypted once they are received by their intended recipients.
Messages with end-to-end encryption can't even be read by the company doing the sending — in this case, WhatsApp and its parent company, Facebook. With iOS and other platform support coming soon, it's a big privacy increase for WhatsApp and its more than 600 million users.

Privacy advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently released a scorecard in which it assessed 39 messaging apps on their basic cryptographic practices, citing seven specific criteria. TextSecure, Signal and RedPhone were among the few to meet all seven criteria. WhatsApp met only two of the seven at the time; now it should meet a third.

How Facebook uses you to annoy your friends. And how to stop it.

In the last lecture we discussed how ads work on FB and we tried to create an ad ourselves. Amazed and amused, I finally discovered the roots of the most annoying (for customers and for me today) and profitable (for businesses and for me tomorrow) characteristic of Facebook: ads, indeed.

As a Digital Marketer, I loved this tool. In a simple way, I can target my potential customers and delivery my ad right on their homepages. Back in the customer’s shoes (in which I still feel more at ease), I hate it. I hate ads. I have always hated them. Except perhaps for those cool TV commercials of the 90s. Some. With years I developed a useful disease: a complete insensibility to ads. Blindness to ads on webpages, deafness to radio commercials, blindness and deafness to TV commercials. If ads had a smell, I would probably be unable to smell it by now. Facebook ads no: they are persistent, they force me to see them. Even worse: they are targeted. They know me, or at least think they know me. I was looking for a holiday a week ago and now I keep on seeing ads of flights, rent-a-car, hotels. They are terrible and powerful.

We have seen in class how FB, or better, the advertisers that use FB, targets us. Let’s now look at how FB collects information. The easiest way is, of course, when we like something. Easy: we like it, therefore we are interested. Secondly, FB understands what we are interested in from the data we provide (e.g. our age) and from what our friends like. More subtly, however, FB gathers information from every activity we do on the web. Facebook social web apps send information to FB and can post to our profile and to those of our friends. Also, FB cookies never expire: they are only altered when we log off, not cancelled.

What can if we want to stop FB? A lot, starting from 4 steps.

1) FacebookDisconnect: FB gets notified when you visit a page that uses Facebook Connect and that data can be used to target ads. Facebook Disconnect stops that flow of data.

2) Facebook Privacy List for Adblock Plus: This subscription for Adblock Plus blocks Facebook plugins and scripts from running all over the web so your browsing data doesn't get tied to your Facebook account.

3) DoNotTrackMe: DoNotTrackMe is another extension that blocks trackers and anyone who wants to collect your browsing data to create targeted ads.

4) Opt out of the Facebook Ads that use your actions (liking a page, sharing pages, etc) to promote ads to your friends. Disable Social Ads.

If you want this tools can help you protect your privacy from the intrusions of FB. However, we are digital marketers after all. So, keep them for yourself and don’t tell your client!

To know more:

http://lifehacker.com/5994380/how-facebook-uses-your-data-to-target-ads-even-offline

http://lifehacker.com/5843969/facebook-is-tracking-your-every-move-on-the-web-heres-how-to-stop-it

http://lifehacker.com/5987248/how-facebook-is-using-you-to-annoy-your-friends-and-how-to-stop-it

Google tries to impose restrictions on Google

In an age of Big Data where thousands of companies across the internet are not only collecting, but often sharing users’ information, Germany’s privacy regulator is working to enforce some control over the flow of user data, specifically from Google. A recent legal ruling stated that Google must “seek Germans’ expressed permission before it uses their data to create online user profiles across its services.” 

Germany differs from the US in that it is illegal in Germany to ascertain specific information on individuals, such as financial information, relationship status and sexual orientation, all of which can currently be done easily by Google’s databases. If Google does not comply with the ruling, it risks penalties of up to $1.27 million. With the success of Google’s algorithms resting on their ability to capture as much user data as possible and use this data to customize their offerings, it will be interesting to see whether Google complies and if they do, what that will mean for their future success in Germany. 

Read the entire article regarding the regulations Germany is trying to impose on Google here as well as below:

A German privacy regulator has ordered Google to give its users greater control over how their online data is used, in the latest privacy case that challenges how the search giant operates in Europe.

The city of Hamburg’s data protection regulator, one of Germany’s leading data protection agencies, said in a legal ruling that Google must seek Germans’ expressed permission before it uses their data to create online user profiles across its services like email, online search and its Android-based mobile products.

The watchdog said that Google’s ability to aggregate such online data without people’s consent could allow the company to ascertain individuals’ financial information, relationship status and sexual orientation, which is illegal under German law.

The German regulator acknowledged that Google did not collect this delicate information to target advertising to people online. But it added that other information that the company aggregated without users’ consent could nevertheless allow the search giant to form a detailed picture of individual users.

Google may face financial penalties of up to 1 million euros, or about $1.27 million, if it does not comply with the regulator’s ruling, according to a spokesman for the Hamburg data protection commissioner.

In response, Google said that it had worked with the regulator to explain its privacy policies, adding that “we’re now studying their order to determine next steps.”

Google has a month to respond to the ruling, which was based on an investigation that began in April of last year.

“The issue is up to Google now,” Johannes Caspar, Hamburg’s data protection commissioner, said in a statement, adding that the company had made some unspecified changes to how it collects people’s online information. “The company must treat the data of its millions of users in a way that respects their privacy.”

The regulator’s comments signal the latest privacy challenge for Google, which has faced similar legal cases brought by other national regulators. In France, the national watchdog fined the company 150,000 euros, or about $190,000, this year for similarly tracking and storing people’s online information.

Google is also battling on a variety of other legal fronts in Europe. The company is facing renewed antitrust complaints brought by the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union. And the tech giant has been stung by a recent European court decision that gives Europeans — and potentially those farther afield — the right to request that links to online information about themselves be removed from Internet searches.

The latest complaint, which was sent to the company last week and made public late on Tuesday, relates to changes in Google’s privacy policies in 2012 that consolidated the company’s 60 privacy policies into one document, which also allowed the company to start collecting data on users across its online services.

As part of the changes, Google is now able to collect information including location-based data when someone uses one of its services, like Google Maps. The search engine also scans individuals’ Gmail accounts to filter out spam and to create tailored advertising.

The changes did not allow people to opt out of the data collection globally.

Mr. Caspar, the Hamburg data commissioner, who previously fined Google $190,000 for illegally collecting personal information from unencrypted German Wi-Fi networks, said the company had not made sufficient changes to give users greater control over how their online information is aggregated.

Mr. Caspar added that while Google excluded personally delicate data like sexual orientation from its online advertising products, combining all the user information from across its services could eventually create “meaningful and comprehensive personal records” of individuals without their consent.

The search giant may also take the case to a local German court if it does not agree with the initial ruling, according to the spokesman for the data protection commissioner.

Google+ revises "real names" policy

It has been a constant complaint about Google+.
"Why do we need to use our real names?"
Several stories were made public about people who got banned because they were not using their real names. One of the most known stories is Star Trek's William Shatner, who was banned due to "violation of Google+ standards". But there are several other examples of people with accounts supended due to the use of nicknames, mononyms, etc.

In 2012, Google started to accept pseudonyms. Some state it was already too late, the damage was already done.

And now, Google announced a radical change. They state that they have been excluding many people who wanted to be part of it without using their real names.

Quoting the announcement:
"When we launched Google+ over three years ago, we had a lot of restrictions on what name you could use on your profile. This helped create a community made up of real people, but it also excluded a number of people who wanted to be part of it without using their real names. 
Over the years, as Google+ grew and its community became established, we steadily opened up this policy, from allowing +Page owners to use any name of their choosing to letting YouTube users bring their usernames into Google+. Today, we are taking the last step: there are no more restrictions on what name you can use. 
We know you've been calling for this change for a while. We know that our names policy has been unclear, and this has led to some unnecessarily difficult experiences for some of our users. For this we apologize, and we hope that today's change is a step toward making Google+ the welcoming and inclusive place that we want it to be. Thank you for expressing your opinions so passionately, and thanks for continuing to make Google+ the thoughtful community that it is."

Sources & additional information:
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/15/3-years-later-google-drops-its-dumb-real-name-rule-and-apologizes/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2356009/Google-Drops-Controversial-Real-Name-Policy-After-3-Years
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/google-plus-real-names-policy_n_1224970.html
http://lifehacker.com/google-drops-real-name-requirements-from-google-1605928371

Google Recommendations on a whole new level

Google has been experimenting with social recommendations for quite some time. With the introduction of Google+, they bridged the gap between search and social. However, they still have experienced some difficulty in capturing market share from sites like Yelp and Amazon in terms of highly trusted comments and ratings. Google announced on October 11 that they are going to start using pictures from Google profiles to associate a face to the name of ratings and reviews.

            Obviously the first thought is privacy – What if I don’t want my face all over the Internet more so than it already is? Google addresses this concern with an opt-out feature, for the relatively tech-savvy. This is much more helpful than the Facebook privacy settings however, which throw you into a labyrinth in order to navigate the complexity of their sharing settings.

            The benefit of this program is that now users will have an easier and more personal association of ratings and reviews to their trusted network. In an ideal world, all recommendations would come from family and friends first, which Google is trying their best to replicate with this process. It’s a smart, calculated move, and I am sure that it will lead towards a higher trust level with Google reviews.

            Many start-ups and mature companies have been racing to ace the personal review market, which is highly coveted and monetizable.  I am interested to see how it pans out, because few companies have the scale and reach of the search juggernaut. 

Facebook is Changing the Very Fabric of Privacy

Is Facebook trying to take over the world? Probably not. They are "just" trying to monetize the largest collection of personal user data in the world. The question is "how?"

While Google is a very profitable business based on Internet advertising, it makes most of its money on keywords where people are actively looking to buy something. Facebook's problem is that nobody ever goes to facebook.com to buy anything. Users are just looking to catch up with their friends.

Chris Dixon expects them to work around this by moving traditional brand advertising to the web:

It is widely believed that Facebook will soon follow the AdSense playbook by introducing an off-property ad network. They’ll try to use their strong base of advertisers to dominate intent generating ads the way AdSense dominated intent harvesting ads.
chris dixon's blog

Because brand display advertising on the web has very low click-through rates, however, this is not a very lucrative monetization strategy. Unless, that is, ads can be hyper-targeted to their audience. Chris suggests that Facebook is trying to do that by finding out more about your taste by letting you "Like" all kinds of stuff on the web.

But I am more interested in how this plays into Facebook's privacy strategy: step by step, Facebook is making it harder to keep your data private. Privacy settings are becoming more complicated and default settings are becoming ever looser. Why?

Mark Zuckerberg, the man who is famously refusing to sell his company even at multi-billion-dollar valuations, is clearly on a mission to change the world. I found this to be a very salient quote:

"You have one identity... The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly... Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity" – Zuckerberg, 2009
via This is going to be BIG

And once these barriers are broken down nothing stands between your detailed personal data and an extremely targeted and lucrative ad. But do we really care? On the one hand, a privacy-conscious potential rival gets lots of attention and funding -- but on the other hand, Facebook is growing like a weed and has just crossed the 500-million-user-mark. Mark Zuckerberg just might end up changing the world after all...

These cookies can do more than make you fat

In a previous post, Cookies or not cookies? , the upside of advertising based on cookies was discussed. While it can be great for advertisers to be able to target people who visited their sites,having a cookie based ad can also lead to an embarrassing breach of privacy. Dating websites such as Plenty of Fish are now using cookie searches to embed ads into other websites such as YouTube. This is fine if you are single guy or gal, but imagine how well it would go over if you were showing the family the latest video of dogs skateboarding on YouTube and this ad shows up.

You would have a lot of question to answer, not the least of which is why are you looking at a Cranberries video in 2010?

Here's a solution - Just alter your scandalous behavior

Quit your whining. Eric Schmidt is tired of you complaining about how his company is invading your privacy - He says: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." There's some truth to that right?? I mean, it seems fair to say that if you don't want people to know what you're doing, you certainly should not be doing it on the internet. Never mind what came first - the fact of the matter is, what you do every day, on and off the internet can be tracked and if I were you, I'd be flattered that someone found me as interesting.

Before I get to the point of this posting, I wanted to quickly share my definition of "invasion of privacy" - in my world, it is the "aggregation of public information in one neat location". Here's an example that neatly illustrates my point. In 2005, CNET allegedly googled Schmidt and then published what it found.

I strongly feel that the salary information should have been left in solitude in the dark corners of the 10K, free from disturbances from his other equally dull info such as:

He and his wife Wendy live in the affluent town of Atherton, Calif., where, at a $10,000-a-plate political fund-raiser five years ago, presidential candidate Al Gore and his wife Tipper danced as Elton John belted out "Bennie and the Jets."

(FYI - this is old news from 2005, I heard, or more accurately, read on some google search that he's now a big fan of Elton John.)

And it's not as if you have any will power to ditch google if they were to do such a thing.

Anyway, the reason I'm posting this is because last night's privacy discussion made me think of the CNBC Original Series about Google and privacy aired December of 2009.

You can watch it here.

I credit this episode for making me obsessively aware of every word I type into google search.

Facebook Backtracks on Beacon

The launch of Facebook's Beacon system a few weeks ago triggered an outcry among users and privacy advocates, who found the automated posting of purchases and other activities on third party websites to users' Facebook news feeds intrusive. Facebook was even likened to the Grinch, for ruining users' holiday surprises by posting the gifts they had purchased online for all to see. In response, Facebook has made important changes to the Beacon functionality. The policy for posting Beacon activity to a user's news feed has changed from opt-out to opt-in, and the opportunity to control one's privacy settings have been made more prominent in the site's interface. Score one for user privacy rights?

More on the development here: Breaking: Facebook Updates Beacon

Facebook's official Beacon FAQ

Talk about the end of privacy...

If you thought what Facebook is doing with selling our profiles to advertisers so they can target us better, how about Google's new investment in healthcare: 23andMe? It's a self-administered genetic test you can get online for $999 and mail in your spit so that you can learn about your genes and your families' genes (and so pharma companies can advertise to you better).

See the full article in the IHT: DNA testing comes for the masses

FTC Wants Tighter Control Over Online Ads

In today's NYTimes article, the FTC chairman, Jon Leibowitz said that the FTC will be exerting a tighter control on online ads. Particularly, he's concerned by ads towards children and privacy issues around data collection. He doesn't say what exactly the FTC will be doing to exert a tighter control. The article does say that there should be more opt-outs and easier to understand privacy policies. This will probably get more interesting as the FTC figures out its policies as it listens to privacy lobbyists and internet businesses.

Here's the link to the full article.