FreshNetworks Blog

Cosmonaut Memorial (Photo credit: bigglesmith)

Last week I went to a talk by Evgeny Morozov at the Royal Society of Arts on the limits and problems with what he terms ‘technological solutionism’, the subject of his new book To Save Everything, Click Here. It was a brilliant talk, available here, and which I would highly recommend that you listen in full if you have the time.

‘Technological solutionism’ is the idea that many of society’s problems can and should be solved with technological fixes. Take, for example, the obesity epidemic that has swept the developed world. With Nike+ fuel band, a person can now precisely track how much exercise they are doing, and they can count all the calories they eat with nice smartphone apps. This information, shared with their friends and uploaded to online leaderboards and social profiles, will then spur them to keep fit and eat more healthily through gamified incentives.

Whilst this is just one small example, you only need to browse Tech Crunch or Wired (most recently with Brain scans predict which criminals are most likely to reoffend) to see the plethora of apps, initiatives and claims that technology and the internet will lead us to a better, cleaner future. As Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, said: “in the future… if we get this right, I believe we can fix all the world’s problems.”

There are, however, a few problems with this ideology:

1. An excuse to push away responsibility for society’s problems: If you take this ideology to its logical conclusions, then proper political and societal discussion of serious issues is side-lined, and the onus for solving them is either outsourced to Silicon Valley or onto individual people. To take the obesity example, questions about advertising of junk food, the proliferation of high fructose corn syrup, or the lack of free sport facilities, are all pushed aside in favour of placing the responsibility solely on individuals. Because now they know exactly how many calories they eat, miles they walk, and can see how much better their friends are doing. So if they’re still fat, well, it’s all their fault.
2. That it makes people overlook the slow erosion of their privacy: What a great deal of these technological solutions have in common is their use of data, either on an individual basis or in aggregate, in ways that many people do not fully realise or understand. Whilst there has been some public debate about this, such as court cases in Germany over Google Street View, much more slips under the radar. Lending companies, such as Lenddo in Hong Kong, base some of their criteria for giving a loan on the applicant’s social profiles, including who they are friends with. Anecdotally, it can be difficult to rent an apartment in parts of New York without a Facebook profile to prove you’re not the wrong kind of person.

These are just a few examples, and can be seen as the thin end of a wedge. In the future the hidden financial and social costs to not sharing your data, and the amount of your data that is used without your knowledge or consent, is likely to continue to grow. More of society’s problems could be pushed superficially either onto individuals or out to tech and data companies rather than being deeply discussed.

One of the main reasons that these quite serious changes in society are being glossed over is that most people implicitly accept the technological utopianism of companies like Google. They are viewed as somehow benevolent, rather than just a business. A business that does not necessarily want to help you, but wants, first of all, to make money from your data.

23andMe (Photo credit: brendanlim)

I’ve been agonising about whether to send my DNA ‘spit kit’ to 23andMe, a personal genetic testing company (founded by the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin). For $99, they will give me information about my ancestry (how much Neanderthal is there in the Trim family?) and help me to learn more about my health. But what are the risks in doing this and am I opening myself up to unwanted scrutiny from third party companies by doing so?

23andMe is an interesting example of the convergence of three trends: quantified-self, Big Data and crowdsourcing.

I track my runs and cycles on RunKeeper and I’ve become sadly addicted to the Heart Rate app – taking pride in how low my heart rate is, even in the most stressful meetings! The quantified-self movement believes that data and metrics helps us perform better. So getting to know more about my health risks could provide vital data for managing my life better in the future. One example cited by 23andMe is that

…one person in five people develops diabetes by the age of 79. Variations in your DNA tested for by 23andMe might raise your risk to one in three, making your lifestyle choices on factors like exercise and weight control even more critical.

But there are questions over how much the tests that 23andMe currently performs can actually tell us beyond what we already know: to eat healthily, give up smoking and exercise regularly. And if you know you are high risk for a particular disease, does that just create unnecessary anxiety for you and your family? That knowledge isn’t going to stop you from developing the disease and the resulting stress may contribute to a whole host of other health-related complications. Finally if I submit this test, will I have to declare this to my health insurance company and will they penalise me if I turn out to be high risk for say breast cancer? The FAQs on the 23andMe website make the answer to this far from clear.

Last year 180,000 people added their DNA samples to the 23andMe database and this year the company is pushing to take that to over 1 million. What has struck me about the early discoveries that the company has made (for example with Parkinson’s disease) is that this is actually one huge crowdsourcing effort. By analysing a ton of Big Genetic Data, we could all contribute to finding new research breakthroughs and potentially make health improvements for millions of people. So I’m going to forget the personal and think more about how my little piece of DNA could help the crowds. It’s the ultimate use of social data and understanding the connections between us to help us design better health care systems.

Scales of Justice (Photo credit: Citizensheep)

As we recently discussed, there is a growing discussion about who is making money from personal data that we share online and the role that “data-lockers” might play. These would essentially allow people to retain ownership of their data – only ‘unlocking’ it to brands and organisations with which they are happy to share the information.

But how likely are data-lockers to work? Will they really allow consumers to make money from the personal data that they share online? Here’s a summary of the main arguments for and against.

The argument for: Why data locking could take-off

What’s the point of locking down your data when it’s highly likely that companies have loads of it already? We have previously discussed the European Commission’s proposed new data protection laws, which if passed could grant people the “right to be forgotten”. This would make it possible for them to permanently erase all data they’ve already shared, and then lock it down moving forward.

The savings and money to be made – and these work on three potential levels:

1. Earning money: Instead of allowing companies to build up massive detailed data stores of information on you via apps and other social channels (e.g. your health and how much you work out, eating, sleeping, drinking patterns, etc) – make them yourself, lock them down, and charge for them. The ultimate idea behind Personal’s services is that customers will have a marketplace where they can haggle and exchange their data, potentially earning up to £1,000 annually.
2. Saving time: On filling in lengthy application forms for mortgages, insurance, academic courses, etc People can put their personal information in the lockers and this will either help auto-populate fields, or can be picked up by the intended recipient to be processed on your behalf.
3. Saving money: As people can opt to share information in order to benefit from more personalised promotions for things they actually want and intend to purchase.

The argument against: Why data locking won’t take off (at least not yet)

• Security, as these lockers will be prime targets for hackers.
• The proposed EU legislation is still far away from becoming a reality, and as Paul mentioned it is attracting some impressive lobbying efforts. Indeed, both Facebook and Google dramatically increased their lobbying expenditure in 2012 compared to 2011, with Facebook multiplying its spending by 2.5 times.
• People are lazy, and busy. In order to benefit from the potential earnings and savings they will need to expend time and energy on reclaiming their data / setting up the service / building up detailed data sets on themselves for potential sale (not using Nike or anyone else’s handy app) and then haggling over their worth. So the benefits will really have to be worth it for them to make the effort, and it will all rely on a tipping point and mass adoption in order to make any real impact. It will also rely on people reducing the already strong connections they’ve already built up with companies they’ve regularly used for years, and trust (e.g. Amazon).
• Marketers and advertisers will only be interested in bargaining if they can see it’s the best way to reach people – again, it depends on en masse adoption.

So will consumers make money out of the data they share online?  It’s a possibility, but it’s not happening yet. While all the lobbying and hype about data continues though, companies should be careful not to get distracted from building and maintaining trusted relationships with their customers. That way, customers will be more likely to want to continue to do business and share their information regardless.

6/52 - Work (Photo credit: whatmattdoes)

There is much talk about the looming gap between the opportunities being created by big data and finding workers with the right skills and expertise to fill these positions. A recent study by Gartner predicts that by 2015, 4.4 million IT jobs globally will be created to support big data opportunities within brands.

With these opportunities come challenges, not least how you use the data in a responsible way without alienating the customers you are hoping to offer better services and products to. This has led some to suggest brands need a Big Data Ethicist, charged with ensuring data is used in a responsible and ethical way.

Ways your business could be damaged by use of big data

The damage to a brand from use of big data can impact in three main ways: the brand and reputation, the relationship with customers and financial. Three simple examples of these are:

1. Damaging the brand reputation: Target’s brand was damaged when their predictive analytics team knew about a teenage girl’s pregnancy before she could break the news to her own father. This sparked outrage about the legality of Target’s actions and many people have started questioning various companies’ marketing techniques and using their club-cards
2. Alienating customers: TomTom, maker of  popular GPS navigation devices, was forced to apologize after news that Dutch police had used data gathered from drivers TomTom devices to set speed traps up. The scandal resulted in TomTom slashing their 2011 sales figures down by $90 million and company’s CEO issuing a statement assuring customers that it would investigate how the data they sold was being used
3. Fines: Google was hit with a $22.5 million fine for embedding software that bypassed privacy settings of millions of Apple devices in order to collect users viewing data for their direct marketing efforts.

The role of a Big Data Ethicist

The role of a Big Data Ethicist in any firm should be to build a culture in an organisation of using big data in a way that strengthens the relationship with customers, respecting their desires for privacy but helping to deliver better products and services to them. Typically a Big Data Ethicist would be responsible for:

• Thinking through the legal consequences and implications of the data and information your company will be creating, using and publishing
• Build customer trust over the use of your big data activities
• Consideration of long-term, far-reaching implications of the use of big data technologies, for example a backlash from consumers over companies’ use of their data
• Help decisions makers plan new big data activities

How might this role fit into existing roles and processes? Are brands that are experimenting with big data considering these ethical issues?

green for sale sign (Photo credit: Diana Parkhouse)

As we discussed in a recent posts, we are all leaving increasingly large data exhausts behind us online, as we perform searches, visit websites, execute transactions, use apps on our mobile phone, connect and share on social media. The vast volume of data that businesses are building up on us is a treasure trove for marketers, enabling them to better understand us, predict our preferences and behaviours, and take actions to bind us closer to their brands and encourage us to purchase their products.

When these actions are done effectively they can surprise and delight us, but a miscalculation can soon make us question what data businesses are holding on us, and how is that data being used.

Is a privacy backlash coming?

There is much debate as to whether a major privacy backlash is looming just round the corner, or whether a much more permissive attitude towards openness and sharing of data will prevail as new digital native generations grow up. Some people are also starting to recognise the value of their own data and the next logical question is to challenge who is currently making money from my data? Why not me?

Who is making money from my data?

The answer to the first part is easy, it is currently the platforms – notably Facebook, Google, Twitter, but also app providers. For example, consider the data set that Nike is accumulating through its Nike+ ecosystem of products. It knows exactly how often you run, for how long, at what speed, in what places, and with whom. It could know how well your heart is performing during your exercise. This is interesting and valuable information for you as a consumer as it can help you set goals and track your progress. It is also a goldmine of data for Nike. At its most basic, Nike now knows when it should be subtly recommending that you replace your worn out running shoes. Hypothetically, I wouldn’t be surprised if the data could be used to predict your probability of suffering a heart attack. I am not suggesting that Nike do this, but given sufficient volumes of data you can start to pull out the patterns and predict future outcomes. What if your life insurer had access to that same data?

Personalisation is therefore a double-edged sword; it can deliver valuable tailored products and services that we love, but it can also feel intrusive and even exclude us from things that maybe we would have had access to in a less data rich environment. So do we lie back, log out, or try to take control?

Data-lockers and how consumers could profit from their data

European legislation currently being debated would significantly increase the regulation in this domain, preventing companies from using your data with 3rd parties without your explicit consent. It seeks to force much greater transparency on what information is being collected about you, and what it is being used for. The internet titans are waging an unprecedented lobbying campaign (linked page in Spanish) to prevent this legislation from seeing the light of day, as it would probably force a radical shift in their business models.

Numerous start-ups are trying to find opportunities in this landscape with services such as “data lockers” – where you can deposit your personal data and grant access to businesses to selected areas. This opens up the possibilities of services such as reverse price comparison, where you invite companies to give you the best offer on the data that you opt to share. Maybe you could even receive direct remuneration for opening up your personal data – the more comprehensive it is or the more interesting your profile is to businesses, the higher the rewards for you. The UK’s midata initiative, which gives consumers a portable copy of their data so that they can take it elsewhere and try and get a better deal, also falls into this space. These are exciting ideas, but the question is – who is positioned to deliver these services? Would you entrust your data to a small start-up? A lot of the most valuable data is currently sitting on the servers of the huge corporations, whose value is directly linked to how many consumers are on their platform and how well they enable third parties to use that data.

Trust and transparency will determine who the winners are that emerge from all this. As companies seek to explore and expand big data projects these are critical areas of consideration.