We all know what a creepy use of data is because we’ve all had it happen to us before. Data is bounced around so many devices, locations, and protocols, there is no chance that legitimate consent is a part of the marketing equation. Unfortunately, people haven’t had the power to understand, let alone exercise, any kind of privacy rights over the past couple of decades as the creepy data use grew exponentially.
In response to Apple’s big privacy push in iOS 14.5 and beyond, I’ve seen so many marketers complain about the overreach with regard to burner email addresses and other tools that obfuscate the user’s identity from the third party.
Perhaps marketers are right in that isolated statement.
However, marketing surveillance crossed the line years ago. If Apple and other companies decide to overcorrect for a few years, I’m quite alright with that move.
Recently, I witnessed a conversation among marketers where they suggested some of these moves with privacy features will hurt relevance and aren’t what consumers want. One marketer noted further that consumers should be able to make a well-informed choice, not a knee-jerk response to a message on their phone.
Perhaps if marketers hadn’t spent the past two decades eroding every fabric of privacy and choice online, we’d be able to better negotiate a balance between privacy and marketing. However, dark patterns consisting of pre-checked opt-ins and hidden opt-outs have destroyed our confidence in marketers’ abilities to save the functionality of the web.
Not to mention the deluge of cookies and fingerprinting to track every move consumers make on the web further erodes any chance of redemption for the way marketers abuse our data.
Of course, we can’t forget to mention the billions and billions of personal data records that are stolen because companies failed to protect that data and lost it in a breach. Consumers are given a warm and fuzzy email about everything being done in a response to the breach and, of course, they’ll provide credit monitoring services for our troubles.
What marketers are asking for is trust – and that’s something they lost years ago.
Now that privacy is making headway in consumers’ minds and we have a chance to take our data back, I think we’re all going to be just fine with the uphill battle that marketers face to earn our trust. Sell me your product without selling my data. Convince me that I can trust you with my real email. Give me a good reason to opt-in.
The chickens are coming home to roost.
Earn our trust.
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