Privacy

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.

According to a recent Pew Internet study, about teen social media use and privacy:

• 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.

On the other hand, there are a lot of adults over the age of 40 that won't even dip their toe into the Facebook pool because of concerns of privacy.

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.

Related articles

• Are Users Becoming More Disenchanted with Facebook?

The Many P's of Marketing: Privacy

Marketing has gotten more and more nuanced, as new technologies and strategies have opened up many options for marketers.  It is my contention that today, the marketing mix contains much more than the traditional four or five P's that are taught in school.  In this series I am exploring the Many P's of Marketing.

Privacy:  I like to think that I can use the Internet to fuel my obsession with the old TV shows "My Mother the Car" and "Cop Rock" (for the uninitiated, two creative, very short-lived TV shows) without having that obsession broadcast across my Facebook page, my Google+ site, or anywhere else I go.  I like to think that but I would be wrong.

It seems lately that not a day goes by in which we read about one tech giant or another who mines data from our emails or our app purchases or our searches to sell that data to advertisers who then use it to place ads that show up later in our email box or next to our apps or when we use search engines. On its face, this seems innocent enough.  These sites are searching what you spend time with so they can connect you with marketers who have something that matches your interest.  Facebook, Pinterest, and email, are all electronic formats which makes it relatively easy to mine content. That is how the boy and girl geniuses at Facebook and Google see it.

Many people, however, see it as an invasion of privacy.  Thinking of email like mail from the Post Office, many people expect the same privacy when an email or IM is addressed to them as they get when a letter is addressed to them.  It is common to see stories of a politician, teacher or other public figure who forgot that nothing is really private on the Internet and posted or tweeted or otherwise made public pictures or personal peculiarities that they meant to keep private.

I believe that privacy will be a currency of distinction between marketers in the next decade or so, just as specialization and personalization of messages were the currency of distinction in the 90's and early 21st century.  The marketer that figures out a way to keep customer information truly safe (or at least get us to believe that it is) will gain a significant advantage.  The marketer that figures out how to make her customers feel "data secure" will be able to collect more data and more unique data than her competitors.  The marketer who can make his customers and prospective customers feel safe sharing their personal information, will see fewer customers leave to try competitors, will enjoy greater customer loyalty and will have less need to sell customer information.

Some companies seem to have already identified privacy as important issue to customers, although I haven't seen any that are using privacy as a competitive advantage.  Rather they are using lack of privacy as a competitive weapon, charging lack of privacy against their competitors.  For example, Microsoft now tells us we will get "Scroogled" if we use Google for our email, citing Google's practices of mining emails for content.

One question that remains is how will consumers react.  To date, we have reacted to privacy issues much like we have responded to gas prices.  Everyone talks about how out of control the price of gas is as they fill the gas tank of their giant SUV.  Privacy issues have caused some tempests in Facebook's teapot, but hasn't really impacted the number of people who log onto the site in an almost religious fervor.  Perhaps more ads like Microsoft's will have some impact.  Perhaps not.

Regardless of whether they use it as a competitive advantage or a competitive weapon, regardless of whether consumers revolt or stay put, I believe we will hear more and more about privacy from companies in the coming years.  I think privacy will be one of the ways small and mid-sized tech companies will be able to squeeze out a competitive advantage against the giants in the industry.  I believe creating true data privacy and security is and will remain a truly sustainable competitive advantage.

Just don't tell anyone that I'm going to go watch Cop Rock!

Related articles

• RSA 2013: Google - Privacy Criticism 'Dishonest And Misguided'
• Facebook and data brokers to pick ads for you
• Stress, privacy issues define consumer trends in '13
• Do you actually care about privacy?