Just because we can doesn’t mean we should: the ethics of consumer data collection
Opinion
The reality is consumers’ demands of brands, experiences, media, and privacy have changed, and we need to change with them.
The phrase “right message to the right person at the right time” has become so common in digital marketing that it could be considered the de facto mantra of our industry. It’s easy to understand why—getting the perfect message to your ideal audience right as they’re in the market – what marketer doesn’t want that? However, this phrase has been floating around for so many years that I think we forget the process it necessitates: Discovering who a consumer is, what they’re interested in, when they’re interested in it and where they are right now.
From the consumer’s side, this sort of precise targeting is not always cause for celebration. Yes, relevant messages are great; we’ve all had the experience of saying “oh, I was just thinking about something like that!” and making a purchase. But, we’ve also been on the other side of the spectrum, saying, “wait, was my phone listening to me? How did they know I was thinking about that?”
Ultimately, this process is enabled by the collection and use of data. In many cases, data usage is a ‘win win’—both valuable to advertisers and helpful to consumers. But, as we’ve seen in news stories, discussions, and tweets over the last few weeks, there are negative ramifications when we don’t put enough thought or rigor into the data we’re collecting and using.
I began thinking about this topic in depth when watching John Oliver’s deep dive into data brokers a few weeks ago. The segment was flawed, but the overall premise warrants consideration. Consumers are starting to understand how (and what) data is collected about them, and they’re not thrilled.
The leaked Supreme Court draft decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade brought newfound urgency to this issue. I first read the ruling through the lens of an American woman, and my interest and opinions were all personal. However, after some internet rabbit holes and late-night doom scrolling, I began to see the connection between this potential ruling and the media, data & technology world that I work in every day.
Others had already made the connection long before I got there. Over the last few weeks, a number of companies have been called out for collecting and selling data that could ultimately be used to identify (and report) people receiving abortions—something that, after the ensuing changes in legislation around the US, could be very dangerous. And the response we’ve seen from corporations has led me to believe that, in the best case, people like me didn’t play out the scenarios to their eventual ends and, in the worst case, didn’t bother to ask the tough questions. But, beyond these callouts, it’s indicative of a larger issue within the 3rd party data industry. Our field is already under pressure from the end of the 3rd party cookie and mobile IDs—this is one more hurdle we have to overcome.
We can, and have, had long discussions unpacking the nuances of data collection, data aggregation, deidentification, etc., but in all of these cases one question seems to be missing: “Just because we can, does that mean we should?”
I was having this conversation with a friend in the industry, and she pointed out that this is not a new discussion. All we have to do is think back a few years to the scandal that hit Target when they accidentally outed a pregnant teenager to her father by recognizing patterns in her purchase data. To say now that we couldn’t have predicted, or didn’t realize, that data could or would be used in this way is BS. We haven’t been able to claim ignorance for years – we all should have been asking the tough questions.
As we think about the events of the last few weeks, months and even years, it really leads to a larger discussion about ethics in our business. There have been frequent conversations about what it means to be ethical in media, usually centered around the important topics of sustainability, inclusivity, representation, and access. However, barring a few exceptions, there have been few large-scale conversations about ethics in the context of data and technology. We need to consider the big ethical implications of the collection and usage of data, as well as the unintended biases of these data sets, and the technologies they’re fed into.
Governments have recently spent a lot of time thinking about how to regulate the collection and use of data from a privacy perspective and, as industry practitioners, we spend a lot of time thinking about how we adapt to these regulations. The reality is consumers’ demands of brands, experiences, media, and privacy have changed, and we need to change with them. We need to give people the respect that they deserve. We need to act in a way that is not just compliant, but ethical. And we need to be asking the right questions, the tough questions, because I believe companies and individuals asking “should we,” as well as “can we,” could have prevented some of the predicaments we find ourselves in today.
Jamie Seltzer is global managing director, martech & data strategy at Havas Media Group.