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Adam Thierer

great piece on online behavioral marketing and privacy

This essay by Josh Chasin over at the MediaPost’s Metrics Insider Blog is the best piece I’ve read on behavioral marketing & privacy in a long time. I like this analogy, in particular:

Let’s say you are a tall, dashing, smartly dressed Chief Research Officer at a major Internet audience measurement company, and you walk into Nordstrom’s. A sales clerk you recognize comes up to you and says, “Hey, your wife’s birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and we just got in those sweaters she likes. Should I put a couple of them away for you in her size and color?” Now let me ask you. Does this hypothetical Chief Research Officer perceive this to be: (a) an egregious violation of his privacy, causing him to immediately rush home and write his state assemblyman; or (b) another example of Nordstrom’s world-class customer service? If you answered (b), then you’re tracking with me so far.

So how come if this exact same thing happens on the other side of the screen, it stops being outstanding customer service and turns into a violation of privacy?

Great question! And yet some over-zealous privacy advocates make this stuff out to be the coming endtimes and call for comprehensive regulation using scare tactics and twisted logic, as Chasin notes:

If Big Brother barges into your home at midnight and takes you away because someone doesn’t like the books you’ve been reading, that’s an invasion of your privacy (and way worse.) But if the ads you see on Yahoo are increasingly relevant to your life, that’s not an invasion of privacy. That’s just the digital version of that nice lady at Nordstrom’s. Let’s not confuse the two.

Exactly.

April 9, 2008 | Comments |

  • dimitris
    Unless my wife had never shopped in Nordstrom before, which would make it creepy.

    Not unlike third-party cookies which, in my browser, result mostly in new AdBlock rules with liberal use of '*' in the regular expressions, like '*.googlesyndication.com/*'.

    BTW, what happened to comments the preview button?
  • DRB
    This is a vast oversimplification of the debate. If Big Brother can view my library records under the PATRIOT Act, why can't they serve Google with a national security letter and learn everything I've searched for (and don't give me Google's line about how IP addresses don't equate to identity--if Big Brother can serve an NSL on Google, they can do the same with an ISP)?

    I don't think its fair to say "let's not confuse the two."

    Search engines have a legitimate interest in collecting data to provide good customer service. Most people understand this. What they really fear is that companies are amassing huge databases of personal information (taken without adequate permission or explanation) which could fall into the hands of the government. This is the crux of the privacy debate in the EU. Let's not forget how Yahoo! helped the Chinese government arrest a political dissident.
  • I have to disagree with you here. There is a limit to the amount that the nice lady at Nordstrom's can memorize about the four thousand people who come into her store, or even the two hundred people who come there regularly. There is a limit to the reliability of her information should a third party request it. Her information is not considered an "asset" to the Nordstrom's Corporation.

    Nordstrom.com can memorize millions of people's buying habits in an entirely reliable manner. Those buying habits can be turned over to big brother without my knowledge (hi AT&T!). They can be subpoenaed in a legal case to indicate my moral character. Most importantly, digital buying habits can be sold, and indeed must be sold if the business possessing them dissolves with outstanding debt.

    The ethics of salespeople (while questionable) are human. their ability to withhold or forget information is vast. The ethics of corporations are purely profit driven. They do not forget, and they are rarely incentivised to withhold.
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