Privacy: Don’t Blame Facebook and Google Alone

What’s really happening with privacy today is that consumers/netizens and business are negotiating a new “social contract.” Sure Facebook and Google among others, have made mistakes in how they deal with privacy. So have netizens who post a comment or statement on a blog open to everyone and then get angry when they are confronted with libel or slander by the offended party – you post it where it’s open to the public, it’s your fault.

So how are we going to deal with this?

The reality is, the general public is figuring this out as much as the companies offering social technology services. Both are to blame for mistakes and wins.

1. Business wants less privacy so they have more data on people and groups to sell to product manufacturers and services providers. They want “marketing data”. A business really does not care about an individual. They don’t have the time or resources. As much as the business world talks about 1 to 1 customer relationships the reality is quite the opposite.

2. Consumers want more privacy to protect personal data from marketers. They also want it so they can better manage their social relationships and the relationships they may form with corporations.

The reality is that no one has all the right answers – how could we? The issues of privacy will be settled over time and with that most powerful of incentives in our world today – money. When consumers are truly frustrated with a company or product, they don’t buy it and they don’t participate. Or citizens push (as is their right) government to develop legislation for regulation.

Despite Facebook’s privacy faux pas, they continue to grow rapidly. Google remains the top search engine. Hundreds of millions still use Gmail and other Google services. Twitter continues to grow.

Privacy issues like we’re addressing today have never before been an issue in society. We have absolutely no precedence to refer to. A form of “social contract” existed before because it was quite easy to control privacy. With the advent of CCTV cameras, low cost of networking these services and then the Web, all of a sudden we face new issues on privacy.

The debates and outcries will continue for some time yet. Eventually I suspect a happy medium will be found. Until then, we have perhaps a few more decades before a new “social contract” on privacy becomes apparent. Until then, as citizens, I think we have a responsibility to learn and develop our terms as much as business is learning. It’s people that run a business and successful businesses are always innovating and part of that is pushing boundaries, to understand what is and isn’t acceptable.

What do you think?

(Author: G. Crouch)