Privacy is an issue getting lots of media attention right now. Privacy is in the headlines virtually every day lately. While privacy and the protection of it HAS become a political issue, it also is an issue of great social significance. It is also shaping up to be an issue of generational divide. Young people today seem to have a different view about privacy than their parents.
- Students are sharing much more personal information about themselves of social media
- 91% of teens posted a photo of themselves in 2012, up from 79% in 2006
- 71% posted their school name, up from 49%
- 71% posted the city or town where they live, up from 61%
- 53% posted their email address, up from 29% in 2006
- 20% posted their cell phone number, where virtually no one (2%) did just 6 years earlier
- At the same time, 60% of teen Facebook users report high levels of confidence in their ability to manager their settings.
- Just 9% of teens indicated that they were "very" concerned about third party access to their data on social media sites.
I cannot tell if these differences are generational or experiential in nature. Are teenagers less worried about someone mining their personal data from Facebook because they are young and naive or because they are used to the quirks and tendencies of a Facebook-driven life?
This is not to say that young people are not concerned about privacy issues. They undoubtedly are. According to the Pew study, more than half of them limit access to their information using privacy settings.
Despite all of this, there is a growing school of thought among all generations of users that the greatest danger to internet privacy over social media is advertisers, not individuals with malcontent. People are genuinely afraid of the time in the near future when advertisers have gleaned all there is to know about an individual and use that hyper personal information to make highly personalized offers.
The challenge for marketers is to be culturally and demographically sensitive to the issue of privacy. Most people sincerely enjoy the recommendations on Amazon or Netflix that are based on past purchases. Fewer people enjoy those same recommendations when they are based on non-purchase past behavior on the site. There are even fewer (dare I say almost no one) who would enjoy recommendations based on their internet activity on other sites other than the recommendor's site.
The opportunity for marketers is to recognize that privacy is an important issue in the marketplace, albeit one that is viewed differently by different generations. A smart marketer can use respect for customers' privacy as a marketing advantage. A smart marketer can identify the generational similarities in views about different types of privacy and/or can take advantage of the differences.
A smart marketer will recognize that privacy is not just a political issue or a generational issue but also an image issue. Companies that are seen as respecting our individual views on marketing will, I predict, have an advantage over those who are seen as indifferent to those issues.
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