A fair exchange

As we talk to prospective readers and partners, I'm pleasantly surprised that far fewer people than I expected are creeped out by the idea of behavioral targeting. (Or at least far fewer say so than I expected.)

Fred Wilson thinks that people understand the bargain that's being made, and that as long as there is value to the user, people don't mind giving up the info:

While this may be problematic in certain privacy respects, it is hugely beneficial in most respects.  Do you want to know where your teenage daughter is at 11pm after she fails to call you as she promised?  Do you want to know where the nearest Starbucks or Jamba Juice or subway stop is? Would you like to be able to text message your buddies the exact location of the cool bar you are hanging out in?  I think you get the picture.

This leads me to ... Matt Blumberg, who wrote a post called The New Media Deal in the spring of 2004 which remains in my mind one of the most important posts I have read in blogs in the past couple years.

In this post, Matt describes the new deal consumers are making via technology.  We are consciously or subconsciously sacrificing absolute privacy in return for anywhere, anytime, my way content and communication.

As Matt says in his post,

But I think it's becoming increasingly clear that we have a New Media Deal, which is that people are willing to sacrifice their anonymity in a heartbeat if the value exchange is there.

So we can wring our hands all we want about the privacy issues with respect to geolocation on cell phones, or behavioral targeting on the web, or saved search history on Google, but my feeling is that the benefits of these technologies will vastly outweigh the loss of privacy for most people most of the time and that's really all that matters.

Comments

[Matt Blumberg]

People aren't freaked out about behavioral targeting because they don't know about it. The key to the New Media Deal is transparency, and that's what a lot of companies still don't get.

That said, I bet consumers wouldn't be so freaked out by BT if it were completely transparent and they had windows into the data and what value it provided them when used by marketers.

-Matt

[substantial]

The issue of "privacy" is a red herring. The real issue is whether one respects the consumer or not.

I use bugmenot like crazy at the NY Times site. I don't want to volunteer information to be marketed to. I merely want to learn from their site, and I will pay for their services if they so ask (I did subscribe, once upon a time, and had to stop for financial reasons). The idea that constantly advertising to me, and using assumptions about my attributes is going to make me buy something is utterly and totally insulting.

You may respond that "psychological research shows blah blah," that I, as a physical, organic creature moved only by a "reason" that is the product of acculturation, can be suckered into anything if it presented right. That's fair. That point is probably made in Plato in the 10th book of the Republic, where philosophy must take on the means of drama to teach. Ideas in-and-of themselves, no matter how powerful, hold no interest to many.

Unfortunately, I hold an attitude derived from another body of thought - treat others the way you want to be treated. To what degree does the whole concept of marketing violate this notion?