3PHealth Blog
“How To” on Digital Privacy
Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
Last week, Kate Murphy of the New York Times published an article entitled, How to Muddy Your Tracks on the Internet. What really impressed me about this article is that we now need to to take proactive steps and possibly even spend our own money to protect our online privacy – something that should have been respected by businesses and protected by laws that already exist. What a sorry state of affairs.
Look – most of us have nothing to hide – legally speaking. We are good people and law abiding citizens. But, some things should only be shared with family members, close friends or healthcare professionals. Other things? Fine. Share away! What has our panties in a twist is that something was taken from us without our express permission. We were not respected and we have no choice. Most companies have decent privacy policies and are not out to harm their customers. They are pretty good about not actively sharing your data. It’s the passive sharing that’s causing the furor.
The problem with most privacy policies is the “sharing with 3rd parties to deliver our services” clause that frequently exists. What are the 3rd parties doing with customer data after they’ve delivered the service to the “first party”? Are they storing my information and browsing habits? Are they profiling me? Are they selling the data to someone else and making a profit? All of this is legal in the U.S. – at least for now – but it doesn’t make it right. Do Not Track is only the tip of the iceberg. Why not just deliver my service and dump the data? Why not tell me in the privacy policy what the 3rd parties are really doing, so I can make a better choice?
- Tell me clearly and completely what you are doing (and not doing) with my data
- Take the time to research your service delivery partners and understand their business models and what they are and are not doing with your customer’s data
- Hold your service partners contractually responsible to the agreed upon data use terms
These three simple things will go a long way to improving trust on the Web. I think that more good can from teaching businesses how to do privacy right than from teaching consumers how to protect their privacy. We’re happy to help. Give us a call!
In the mean time, as individual Web users, follow Ms. Murphy’s advice and learn how to protect the data you don’t want shared.
The Privacy Oxymoron – How do I increase My Privacy AND still get a great online experience
Monday, April 30th, 2012
Everyday now there is more and more discussion on Privacy. On the one hand you have the Privacy advocates who want nothing more than complete control over every aspect of their Privacy, and then on the other hand you have the Govt. and online content providers who want even more detailed information on you.
It’s becoming like a Seinfeld episode – “something’s got to give Jerry!”.
But what? Privacy is really an oxymoron unto itself. If you de-identify data enough it has no value in which case the experience isn’t going to be that great because Web sites are built around figuring out who you are.
Two articles appeared on the Web today:
- How ‘Do Not Track’ Could Kill The Internet Startup Economy
- Developer Builds Privacy-enhancing Web Browser for Apple Devices
Also I’m starting to see Do Not Track show up in public company filings – saying that it could effect earnings. Let’s face it the Web has been built on the premise that in exchange for “free” I get to use your information. So it could be a huge drain on resources if this standard gets implemented. And now we’re also seeing new browsers pop-up (no pun intended) that basically anonymize your tracks on the Internet, but slows down your experience.
What continues to perplex me is that no one is turning this problem “on it’s head” and looking at it from a different perspective. It’s an opportunity vs a problem.
Lets face it nobody is going to suddenly overturn the last 10 years on the Internet. We’re all addicted to free and we basically turn a blind eye to Web sites using my private data. However with Mobile showing up to the party things are beginning to change. Mobile is deemed “really personal” and so we want to be sure that nobody is tracking us while we walk around.
So can we really ever have our “cake and eat it to?”
Well yes – I think we can. I wrote about how in a previous blog (A Contextual Approach to Online Privacy – It’s all about Me) but it bears repeating. What’s going to be needed is a way to placate both “stakeholders” – Me the consumer and You the content provider.
What I want is:
- Convenience
- Privacy
- Control
What the Content Provider wants is:
- Control
- Commerce ($$$)
What we have to do is “align” those two sides and give them away to resolve the differences – when we align those sides you’ll see the real power of the Internet realized for the first time.
So instead of trying to create more complexity, instead look for more simplicity. Alignment vs disorder. And as usual the answer will be staring us in the face.
Do NoT Track – Cui Bono?
Friday, April 27th, 2012
Cui Bono – or in other words, Who Benefits?
Well I’m not really sure. I’ve been doing lots and lots of research into this, and I still can’t figure out how this is going to really benefit anyone other than the programmers who stay employed to try and implement everything.
Lets start with the definition of Privacy. There are a lot of them but for this blog let’s use the one I came up with:
“Privacy is: My ability to control the collection, flow, and use of My personal information”.
That’s pretty simple. I want a convenient easy way to control what I share online. If someone abuses the data then I want an easy way to “un-share” that information. So lets see how DNT enables that.
After launching my browser I go to the Preferences and then the Privacy tab. There I select the check box which says “Tell Websites that I don’t wish to be tracked”. So far so good. Now what is meant to happen is that automagically every Web site I go to will start looking for this incoming message and automatically disable any tracking capability that they may be using.
Ok, lets stop right here. Can you imagine the amount of code they’ll have to wade through to check A) to see what they’re doing as it relates to tracking and then B) disable that or re-program it in the case that I haven’t actually checked the Do Not Track box in the browser. This is an incredible amount of work and as the saying goes “what’s in it for me?”
Well not a lot actually. You’ll have to spend time, money, effort to rebuild your site so that it supports this new capability. You’ll have to publish new terms of service, new privacy policies and finally make sure all of it works perfectly. And after doing all of this you may lose ad revenue because you’re no longer sharing customer information.
So lets sum all this up – spend money, and see a drop in revenue. Hmmm not what I really wanted.
However that’s only one side of the equation – what about “Me”… what’s in it for me?
Well not a lot really. You have no way to actually know whether or not you’re being tracked. There’s no change in the amount of data you’re sending – the Web site can still see everything as before. There’s no granular control over what you’re sending and no way to change any of it – or – even add to it. In short it’s a check box with little or no meaning.
Returning to the question: Do Not Track – Cui Bono?
As far as I can tell – no one. It’s more work for the Web content provider, if they implement it could result in a loss of revenue, and it’s only a recommendation so there’s no enforcement. For the consumer there’s zero benefit. There’s no improvement to the Web experience and no way to verify if the content provider is actually honoring the browser setting.
What about an alternative approach?
For that to work you have to look at the stakeholders, and in this case there are 2. The user and the content provider. What’s needed is a simple way to share more context with the content provider so they can provide an “enhanced service”. Enhanced services drive new revenue which is something they want. The “cost” of this is “Trust”. The more I trust the more I share. The more I share the greater the potential for revenue.
So for DNT to really succeed it has to provide new revenue opportunities for the content providers who are currently trading the cost of supporting the free service by selling your data. The current approach to DNT does not do this.
Privacy – A new definition for the Internet
Thursday, April 26th, 2012
I think it’s time for a new definition of Privacy. In the last few months i’ve lost count of the number of white papers & books I’ve read on the subject. And yet I found all of them lacking. They never seem to sum things up so that regular folks could understand it. So I thought I’d propose a new definition of Privacy.
Privacy is: My ability to control the collection, flow, and use of My personal information
Whew – that wasn’t so bad was it? As I’ve said on numerous occasions privacy is about “Me” and my information. Before the Internet the flow was much more easily controlled – however now that we all have smartphones and are connected 24*7 our data is much harder to control. So any definition of Privacy has to be supportable in both an online and offline world.
Privacy is simple, it’s about Me, My data and how it’s used. There’s no need to make it any more complex than that.
ICOSA & Starto.TV
Friday, April 20th, 2012
This was taken at last nights shoot with the folks over at ICOSA (Starto.TV) (that’s Me in the front center). The show will air next week and it will be a doozy – all about Internet Privacy.
We had a total blast at the shoot. These folks are amazing.