Trade it for a Reward or Send it to Davy Jones Locker, Your Personal Data is Your Choice

The next time you get excited about that deal for a discounted meal just when you’ve stopped in the city for a bite to eat, you would probably like to thank your phone for a decent return on investment. You might change your mind though if someone told you that you were being chased albeit silently and invisibly to give you that genie type experience. You may still dismiss the idea, thinking you are an ordinary mortal not a Hollywood celebrity being chased by paparazzi. That’s why the Federal Trade Commissioner calls the trackers ‘Invisible Cyberazzi’, those who are constantly monitoring your activities, financial transactions, holidays you have taken, deals that interest you etc… etc…. but in an invisible shadowy sort of way.

Does that remind you of George Orwell’s Big Brother in any way? Well, the only difference is that you are under surveillance but not by Government this time. It is the businesses that intend to sell you more and more appropriate products for which they need to know what interests you. The question is if you are game for it.

If you are still one of those who haven’t recognized the value of your own data, you are probably not alone. However, many apparently as per a report in Ad Week are now seriously getting interested in extracting that value out of their personal data. If anyone was perceptive enough to get a sense of this popular sentiment, it is the ‘data locking’ companies, who are trying to carve a business model out of keeping your data secure unless you want to trade it for some benefit. World Economic Forum may have gone too far to call your personal data as “new oil” but there is nothing mincing the fact that personal data of an average internet surfer is far more important than they are possibly aware of. 

You probably don’t feel it is intrusive enough, unlike cold calling, that you should get bothered about it. Besides, there is a convenience factor of being approached at the right time for the right stuff. But there is this fine line between privacy and convenience and it should be in your hands to ide how you want to share it. The article in Adweek points out a study conducted by Internet privacy company TRUSTe. The study reveals that a vast majority of people are leaning towards not consenting for sharing their location based personal data. In this 46% are certain about it and 20% show a high probability of not consenting. 

Now this is where companies like Azigo, Personal and Experian come into play. While these companies have access to your data as you browse, they would keep your data safe unless you allow them to share your data with a marketer in return for a benefit. The companies get a percentage out of that benefit. What is most interesting about this offer is that control is in the hand of the consumer, whether to share their personal data or not. 

Shane Green, CEO of Personal, a data locking company, believes that there would be a big shift in the market “People have to understand how [data tracking] works and have some control over it or else it’s going to become way too spooky and invasive,”

Azigo’s head of marketing, Steve O’Brien1 believes that just as people go to Facebook for managing their personal relationships and use LinkedIn to manage their professional network, there is still room for managing commercial relationships in one place, and this is where Azigo fits in.

Three factors that should determine the success for these companies are 1) Interest of people in trading their personal data for a value. 2) Trust in these companies 3) Safety of the data. A recent research based on a KPMG report 1 indicates that people are willing to part with their information when they foresee a benefit coming out of it. The report’s findings are encouraging for ‘data locking’ companies which suggest an overwhelming 62 % of consumers said they are alright with getting tracked if they gained a value from it. The next big impediment to success of these companies is trust factor. Would we trust these companies more than Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon? It really depends on how they position themselves. However, the ultimate risk is safety of the consolidated personal data. World Economic Forum identifies Cyber Security as one of the biggest technological risk this year in its risk assessment report. With all the juicy data that these companies end up collecting, it should also be very lucrative site for hackers. How would these companies create fool proof systems that win the confidence of the consumer long term? Even if our personal data is “new oil” we have to be assured it is safe for use and only when we allow it.

 Source: Adweek