The True Price of Privacy
By Gautschi, Heidi
WHAT USERS ARE WILLING TO EXCHANGE FOR (FREE) CONTENT We all treasure our privacy, but just what exactly do we mean by that? In the United States, the right of privacy is written into the 1st, 4th, 5th and 14th amendments of the Constitution. These amendments mainly protect various aspects of our personal and private lives. There are also laws that protect access to private information, which the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) tries to enforce. However, on the limitless frontiers of the wild wild web, this statutory right of privacy can’t always be enforced either because existing laws don’t apply to this new medium or the medium is just evolving too quickly for the laws to keep up.
Add to this the fact that the web is global, and different countries have different laws on the books. And, the web is, well, a web. It’s confusing and still relatively new. Laws regulating cyberspace are still being created. Until the lawyers and politicians hammer out these new regulations, companies, individuals, and a number of other interested parties are in a tug of war over access to private information online.
Coupled with the unclear legal issues regarding our right of privacy online, is the ongoing confusion surrounding online communication itself. Every new form of interaction requires that we renegotiate the unwritten rules that regulate communication. We have to find new answers to such questions as who can communicate with whom, under what circumstances, and what can we communicate via this tool. Of course, as with any negotiation process, reaching a consensus takes time and perseverance. Right now, we’re smack in the middle of one of these renegotiation periods, and the parties involved have very different agendas.
The recent debate about the exchange and protection of private information online has been kicked into high gear with the arrival of social networking sites, behavioral targeting, and social ads on our media radar. Most of the fear comes from how certain sites use private information for commercial gain. Privacy means different things to different people, though, so what one person is willing to divulge for free content another may balk at.
YOU SAY TOMATO
Maybe, just maybe, what we’re experiencing is a good old- fashioned generation gap. Those who have grown up with easy (and early) access to oodles of high tech remote interaction tools just don’t see communication in the same way as those of us who met our fellow college freshmen for the first time in person, at orientation. If you’re not worried about sharing intimate information over the web publicly, why would you be threatened by companies collecting some of your personal information?
To create a product, you must first build a resource. Enter rules for content segmentation in the Query field. Here, we are creating a ‘Past Audio Conferences’ resource, which contains all digital assets stored in that particular subdirectory.
To test out this hypothesis, I emailed my web-sawy cousins-all in their 20s-for some help. Despite their relative youth, my cousins are surprisingly bad at returning emails, but 23-year-old Michelle did get back to me. Her responses to my questions do go some way toward supporting my very unscientific hypothesis. She admits to not really thinking about privacy online as much as she should. “I’m most aware of privacy issues because there are tons of horror stories about people losing jobs over pictures posted on Facebook or information they have put in their profile.” She knows companies collect her private information and tries to protect herself to some extent. She explained that, “as a general rule for myself, I try to only give out my personal information when it’s a reputable company that I know won’t sell my information to someone else. So, I only shop online at more well known sites where I’m sure my information is pretty safe.”
If Michelle represents her age group, then privacy issues aren’t really on the radar. Because the web has always been around, privacy isn’t even really an issue. You protect yourself as you see fit. Jeff Chester, founder and executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy concurs that there is a mental shift occurring regarding what is private and what is public. According to Chester, “younger people are willing to share more information about themselves-that’s a permanent and new part of the life we’re living increasingly on digital networks.” For Chester, the danger is not sharing information, but not knowing what is being done with all this data once it’s shared.
TROUBLE WITH A CAPITAL P
If young adults are comfortable sharing parts of their private lives online, then what’s all the hoopla about? For one, they’re not the only ones interacting online. Also, as Chester explains, “Young people don’t realize that the sensitive information they post is now being sold to the highest, or any, bidder.” My cousin, then, in trying to protect herself by limiting access to her Facebook page and shopping only on reputable sites, is still sharing a great deal of information with mysterious third parties. The worry about all this sharing is twofold-who has access to this information, and what is this information used for?
However, if you don’t have a Facebook or MySpace page or a blog, and if you don’t shop online, should you be worried? According to the Center for Digital Democracy, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the European Union, and the U.S. government, the answer would seem to be “yes.” Part of the danger is the lack of awareness on the part of the general public. As Chester says, “The public isn’t informed at all, by the companies, nor the government, about the sophisticated system in place for digital media that collects, analyzes, and then uses our consumer data.”
Let’s face it. We should all be well aware that we’re living in a world where our private lives (online and off) are scrutinized by others. Closed circuit television tracks our comings and goings (and after watching three seasons of the BBC series Spooks, I don’t know how we’d live safely without it). Grocery store fidelity cards record our favorite brand of toilet paper and pickles, and in return we get better-targeted coupons. Any halfway savvy web surfer should know that the same is true online. You’re asked to fill in registration questionnaires for a reason. Amazon kindly offers us suggestions based on our past orders. But who among us really takes the time to read privacy policies? We see the camera as we enter the subway, or the bank, or the elevator, and the reason for its presence is more or less clearly understood. The same is not true online. More often than not, we don’t even know when and what information is being gathered.
FREE CONTENT, STRINGS ATTACHED
The growing worry over companies collecting private information is only part of the story. We may or may not like the fact that bits of our personal lives are residing in databases scattered across cyberspace. What begs the question is why this information is so coveted? The answer, my friends, is money.
Ever since the business world discovered that the internet could be used as another platform to hawk their wares, there’s been a scramble to come up with workable web-based business models. Now that almost anyone offering a service-from your babysitter to the BBC-is compelled to have a web presence, the business model dilemma has become more complicated. If people don’t directly pay to watch television, look up words in the dictionary, or enter a store, why should they have to pay to access online content? For companies such as Google, Facebook, or MySpace, whose business is the internet, generating profit becomes even trickier since online is almost synonymous to free content.
An obvious solution for generating profit offline and on is advertising. The advertising process in the nonvirtual world, while always evolving, is more or less established and understood. Online, however, it can still be difficult to evaluate its effectiveness. Recent developments in behavioral targeting on the web and social ad services help advertisers more effectively target website visitors.
Many users are willing to proffer personal information to register for content access. The tricky part for content providers is to decide how much to ask for. The tricky part for users is to decide how much they are willing to give up.
Macrovision, based in Santa Clara, Calif., has developed just such a solution for information publishers, a group that continues to have difficulty maximizing the value of online content. According to Macrovision’s public relations manager Laura Quach, “For publications that are looking to maintain their profits through increased online readership, subscriptionbased or limited access doesn’t always work. To survive, they need a method of catering to their readership as well as showing advertising value to sponsors.”
Macrovision’s Content Access Control Solution allows information publishers to bring content to market using different business models, one of which is the exchange of personal information for access to content. Steve Schmidt, the company’s VP of product management, explains the basics of this aspect of Macrovision’s Content Access Control Solution, called Advance Registration: “The information publisher can set up a registration process where the user answers questions on a survey. The first time the user visits the site, she may be asked certain questions. The second visit may generate further questions. And the questions asked are the result of logical branching. The information collected can be aggregated to tailor ads.” Tailored ads means advertising space can be sold at a higher rate. The information publisher makes more revenue from ad space, advertisers deliver ads to more likely prospects, and readers gain free access to content. Macrovision is just the service provider, however. Schmidt had little to say about the controversy over collecting personal information in exchange for free content. As he explained, “Macrovision gives guidance, but the information publisher decides how long personal data is kept. It is up to the customer to set up an obligation to exchange information, or not. The information publisher also decides what content is available depending on the questions answered and how they’re answered.”
It would appear then that most companies collect personal information for any number of seemingly harmless reasons, including increasing revenue and providing better services.
Yet according to my cousin Michelle, the price of admission may be too high: “I generally hate filling out surveys or answering questions,” she says, “but I know that if I had to do it to access information I wanted to see, I would. Obviously, there are limits as to what information I would be willing to give out on a survey but if I could just make up a fake email address and answer a few simple questions, I would-but would be annoyed while doing it.” Ah, the lure of free content.
Yet this direct Q&A method isn’t the only way to gather personal information about us. What about companies that provide a free service, like search, and don’t require registration? What information are we giving up when we Google the celebrity du jour’s latest escapades or research an illness or job market?
I SPY WITH MY LITTLE COMPUTERIZED EYE
After watching one of the clips on Google’s YouTube privacy channel (youtube.com/user/googleprivacy), I now know that Google collects your query, IP address, the date and time of the search, and a cookie, every time you search. Part of the cookie and the IP address is deleted after 18 months; Google cookies now expire after 2 years, far shorter than the industry standard.
A Google spokesperson, who interestingly asked not to be named, explains the logic behind its collection policy: “Google collects and retains our server logs for three reasons: to improve our search algorithms to the benefit of our users, to defend our systems from malicious access, and to maintain the integrity of our systems, to comply with data retention legal obligations.” I understand that none of this information is truly personal in the sense that no one can connect me with it. Still, it’s a little creepy knowing that someone out there, even if it is a computer, has a record of all my Google searches. Ac an imperfect analogy, what if the local library used our records to provide us with suggestions for further reading or to make sure people weren’t abusing their library privileges? There would be no room for serendipity, let alone freedom of choice. And once that data exists, it could be used for unforeseen purposes.
What of Google’s other services, the ones you do sign up for, such as Google Web History and Gmail? According to the spokesperson, “In order to be as transparent as possible, we provide strong notice when users sign up for products that may collect personally identifiable information. Ultimately, the decision of what is and is not private, how much or how little information to share with Google lies in the hands of our users.” In other words, in exchange for offering up my email content on Gmail to be used to tailor ads just for me, I get a slew of free and practical email services. Depending on the service, however, my qualms about sharing information I consider more private than email content outweighs the benefits of the proposed service. As Google’s spokesperson so aptly says, “We understand that users have differing comfort levels in terms of sharing information online.” This brings us right back to where we started.
Willingly completing online surveys and registration forms isn’t the only way personal data is collected online. Search engines keep significant information filed foryears to better serve you, and advertisers and Google take steps to keep users informed about the efforts Google takes to protect users’ privacy.
FULL CIRCLE
The question to ask then isn’t “What are we willing to exchange for free content,” but “What are we already unwittingly exchanging?” We all fill out surveys, but who among us reads the privacy policies regulating use of our private information? We all use search engines, but do we know what information these companies are collecting, and for what reasons? If we actually took the time to read the privacy policies instead of just clicking the accept button, maybe we’d think twice about bartering personal information for free content. Then again, maybe not. There’s no denying that free content is enticing.
Regardless of your comfort level with sharing personal information online, a little more awareness certainly can’t hurt. Chester believes “we need a legislative approach that ensures each individual can determine what happens with their information and data.” Ac other words, you should be able to make informed choices as to what you share and with whom. For him, “the gravest concern is that largely out of view of consumers and policy makers, a ubiquitous system for data collection, analysis, and subsequent targeted use has emerged as the principle organizing system for digital communication. Data collection and targeting are occurring now across applications and across platforms.” Big Brother may not be watching you, but a whole lot of other people are certainly busy collecting bits and pieces of you.
Companies Featured in This Article
Center for Digital Democracy
www.democraticmedia.org
www.google.com
Macrovision Corp.
www.macrovision.com
HEIDI GAUTSCHI (HEIDILAS@GMAIL.COM) LIVES IN THE NORTH OF FRANCE, WHERE SHE TEACHES AND IS STUDYING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION SCIENCES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS X. COMMENT? EMAIL LETTERS TO THE EDITOR TO ECLETTERS@INFOTODAY.COM.
Copyright Information Today, Inc. Mar 2008
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